Behind the curtain: Wagner Covos on what event logistics really takes

Wagner Covos has worked in event logistics since the 2014 World Cup in Brazil, watching it evolve from something people only notice when it goes wrong into a discipline that sits at the center stage. Today, as CEVA’s Global Product Leader for Event Logistics, he leads the company's dedicated business unit, launched in January 2025, to bring together three decades of experience across trade shows, global sports and luxury fashion events under one global offering. Here, he talks about what's driving the industry forward, what separates good event logistics from great – and what it really takes to make sure the curtain opens on time.  

Many people assume event logistics is just about transport. What does running a major event actually involve? 

The decisions that determine whether an event runs smoothly are mostly made before a single shipment moves. Even at the bidding stage, we're designing the logistics architecture: which cargo moves by which mode, how to route around airspace restrictions, where to locate warehousing to minimize last-mile emissions, and so on. 

Planning covers everything from validating hubs and lanes to IT setup, procurement of vehicles and temporary staff, and test events where we stress-test venue flows before anything goes live. I always say event logistics is 85% planning and 15% managing the unexpected – and it's in that 15% that you earn your reputation. 

Even with a perfect plan, something always happens: a customs regulation changes at the last minute, a vessel gets rerouted, a truck is blocked on the road. And often, with these events, there's no margin for error. If we take the Olympics as an example, you might think a competition bike or a pole vault would be interchangeable – but that's not the case. An athlete needs their equipment, the one they trained with. So, if a truck is late, they may not compete. That means having a solid plan and a backup, as well as a really strong local execution team to make it all seamless.  

The events market has grown significantly in recent years. What's driving that – and how has it changed what's expected of logistics?

The global events logistics market is set to grow to USD $126 billion by 2034,1 growing at close to 6% per year. The turning point was after COVID. People were tired of screens and virtual formats, craving in-person, exciting events, and from 2022 onwards, events came back stronger than before, and with higher expectations. 

That shift has moved logistics from what I'd call the "unnoticed art"—get the kit there, don't be seen—into something that's genuinely part of the experience design. And it's happened across three dimensions.  

First, scale and complexity: global tours, multi-venue sports events, hybrid formats, simultaneous pop-up activations – everything got bigger and more demanding at once. The orchestration itself has become a differentiator that audiences can actually feel, even if they can't name it. 

Second, digital visibility. The transparency people expect in eCommerce has arrived in live events too – real-time planning, slotting, proof of delivery. Stakeholders now collaborate around the same live data throughout the full lifecycle of an event, right through to the command center running around the clock during showtime to handle exceptions in real time. 

Third, sustainability. Organizers now arrive with a low-carbon brief from day one, which pulls logistics into the creative and budget conversation from the very start – and it runs all the way through to  the close of the event, where teardown, returns, recycling and responsible disposal are standard parts of the plan.

What does that demand look like for a logistics partner operating at a global scale? 

Paris 2024 gives you a clear picture. Close to 1,100 people were mobilized at peak, more than 15,000 last-mile deliveries across the city, 14,000 bedrooms assembled across multiple athletes' villages, and over 4,700 time-critical shipments—bikes, wheelchairs, pole vaults—all aligned with security, customs and venue access windows across more than 54venues. And alongside that scale sits growing geopolitical complexity. Airspace restrictions, disruption through the Middle East, rerouting away from the Suez Canal: these aren't abstract pressures; they affect every shipment, every trade show pavilion that needs to arrive at its destination, every show that needs to start on time.  

What's striking is that of this huge global sector, a very small proportion is still managed by global players. Boutique providers do excellent work but often struggle with large, complex, multi-regional events – and organizers need partners that can manage the scale and complexity that major events now require. What we offer is the care of a boutique provider with the infrastructure of a global operator, and that combination didn't really exist in this form before.  

For example, when cargo needs to travel from Europe to a venue in Asia and can't take the routes it would have used two years ago, we redesign: ocean where air was planned, rail where ocean is compromised. Having access to vessels, aircraft, rail and road capability through CMA CGM gives us that flexibility. And having spent more than 30 years embedded in the worlds of trade shows, luxury fashion, automotive and major sports events—understanding their rhythms, their standards, their non-negotiables—means we bring that specialist depth at a global scale. 

The industry is more complex, the expectations are higher, and the margin for error hasn't changed. What does that demand of logistics partners going forward? 

You have to be ready to combine everything at once—tighter budgets, multi-venue complexity, sustainability, digital visibility—and deliver one coherent solution to your customer. AI will make events even more multi-site and multi-format, pushing scalability to new limits. Our customers will be more demanding on tools as a result, and we're already embedding AI into our own systems to stay ahead of that. But the fundamentals don't change: you still need the experience, the people and the planning discipline. 

Our job has always been to design the logistics so it never becomes the audience's problem. The athlete doesn't see the forklift. The visitor walks into a venue where everything is ready. The brand experience shines because everything behind the curtain held. That's what we're here to do – and in ten years, it'll still be the measure that counts. The curtain must open. On time, every time.