The proclamation of the extraordinary public holiday came as a surprise for everyone, including EPOC Frankfurter Messe, the organiser of Intersec Middle East. The organiser made a special announcement in the late afternoon of its opening day, explaining that the show will be open as scheduled during the 14th of January, despite the fact that the date has become a public holiday. The organiser also claimed that "it also appears from unconfirmed, but prevalent reports, that a number of major roads through Dubai may be closed". The confusion was verified in the next sentence as EPOC Frankfurter Messe stated: "With so many rumours in circulation, and no official statement currently available to us, we would strongly advise our exhibitors to check local press tomorrow morning".

The organiser advised both exhibitors and visitors "to allow considerable extra time to get to the site and to travel by taxi as they will know best the situation on the ground".

The organiser also admitted the possible negative consequences for the event. "Obviously with a public holiday, and with such potentially severe traffic disruption, it is very probable that visitor attendance will be affected. This is clearly very unfortunate but is unfortunately out of our control".
However, "the Dubai World Trade Centre is open for business as usual. Intersec will be open as we have a large number of international visitors who have flown in to see products and do business," concludes the announcement from the organiser.