The 2010 Italian trade show for the meetings industry will be held on 1-2 July at Rimini’s new Palacongressi conference and exhibition centre. BTC hasconfirmed its partnership with MPI on educational content and cut the basic cost of exhibition modules. The call “be there to demonstrate”, which marks BTC as an innovative and experiental marketplace, is stronger than ever.BTC, the Italian trade show for the meetings, incentives, conferences, events and business travel industry, abandons its traditional autumn date in favour of one more in line with current market requirements, and moves to one of Italy’s best-equipped destinations for hosting large events.
The BTC Advisory Board accepted buyer and exhibitor suggestions, which
indicated a sharp shift in the events and conferences season: November is a month
of intense activity for both corporate organisations and associations, while the
beginning of July was identified as the most suitable “low season” period in which
to look for new venues, services and suppliers before the pick-up in activity in the
autumn. It is therefore an excellent time for the B2B, networking and professional
education activities that BTC offers.
Having selected a new date, the choice of new host city fell on Rimini. This was
based not just on the fact that it is a pleasant seaside resort, but above all because
it is among Italy’s leading destinations for events. Rimini has an organised
conference system with cutting-edge facilities, certified suppliers, quality venues
and infrastructure and the Riviera di Rimini Convention Bureau, which will provide
BTC with logistics support and synergic services.
The new venue for BTC is Rimini’s new Palacongressi conference and exhibition centre, designed by
German architect Volkwin Marg, from GMP in Hamburg. Covering an area of
38,000 sqm, the centre will be completed in April and opened by the national
congress of CGIL (Italy’s main trade unions organisation) in May.
BTC 2010 repeats the call be there to demonstrate, which already last year marked
an innovation of the traditional trade fair format, and invites exhibitors to provide
“experiential B2B” by designing interactive, multimedia or themed stands that
grant buyers the opportunity “to live” the product or service offered, even if only in a
detail.
The 2010 event will also seek to consolidate BTC as a trendsetter for the meetings
industry through the provision of high-quality professional educational content.
The programme of conferences and seminars, drawn up in partnership with MPI,
will be significantly upgraded, with Italian and international speakers offering their
views on the most topical issues for industry stakeholders, presentations of market
research and surveys, and practical in-depth sessions. From this year, participants
will be able to enrol online in seminars, which will then be entered into their
individual diaries.
Good news on the cost-cutting front: the basic size of the exhibition modules has
been reduced from eight to six square metres, affording exhibitors an opportunity to
reserve stands, with full appointment diaries, at a lower and extremely
competitive rate.
The successful system of pre-scheduled appointments, which allows buyers and
exhibitors to build their own individual online diaries and select the
counterparties of greatest interest to them, remains in place. Again this year, the
Hosted Buyer programme will be reserved for a select group of Italian and
international buyers, which will be qualified by the BTC team based on their
potential for doing business with the targets indicated. Pre-registration for hosted
buyers opens on 4 February on the website www.btc.it.
