perhaps the 300 exhibitors are the people booked in to look after the stands!
As per my last post on DSEi the event was a little quieter, no doubt the covid factor, but no one was noticeably complaining about the location or the level of business in depressed times. The aircraft content was low and mainly provided by the USA military. Quite a few ships though. In contrast the co-located security event was deadly quiet on both days.
It will be interesting to see if Helitech World pulls its so far bad reviews back by content and audience. The event does not necessarily need to have the manufacturers except for the tyre kickers but it is clearly an uphill task the organisers face without them