Madrid, 17 March 2010. The conference and events programme overseen by IFEMA CONVENTIONS AND CONGRESSES has played an especially prominent role since the beginning of the year, encompassing a large number of fairs organised by other bodies, as well as other kinds of meetings. The vast majority were of international scope. In this respect, we might make special mention of the Permanent Module of the Spanish Presidency of the European Union.
The programme kicked off on 26 and 27 January with the staging of the International Political Summit “Post-2010 Biodiversity Visions and Targets: The Role of Protected Areas and Ecological Networks in Europe” (Biodiversity Conference). This Summit, which was organised by the Spanish Biodiversity Foundation, Fundación Biodiversidad, and which was inaugurated by the Prince and Princess of Asturias, entailed the creation of a Europe-wide International Biological Diversity Year 2010. The more than 400 participants reflected the success of this event, which took place within the framework of the Spanish Presidency of the EU.
Mid-February witnessed the staging of the VM Ware Virtualization Forum 2010, a free and interactive event on virtual infrastructures. This international conference organised by the events organiser, FITCHLive, for VM Ware, is a leading world forum for virtualization solutions, encompassing everything ranging from workstations to data centers, effectively bringing cloud computing to organisations of all kinds and sizes.
The Sixth Updating Conferences on Implantology, organised by Mozo-Grau, took place during the same week, on 19 and 20 February. More than 1,000 visitors attended these international conferences, which offered professionals from this sector the opportunity to learn about the most important new techniques and scientific developments from the leading specialists in each area.
OmeEXPO Madrid 2010, the most important conference of the year devoted to digital marketing and online advertising, took place at Feria de Madrid on 24 and 25 February. This event brought together 100 exhibitors at various conferences, which took place in four different conference rooms. More than 5,000 visitors made this the most strongly attended conference during the first quarter of the year.
One of the most important initiatives carried out during the first three months of the year at IFEMA consisted of the Permanent Module of the Spanish Presidency of the European Union. This Module, which will operate up until the end of June, the date on which Spain’s Presidency of Europe concludes, provides all of the infrastructures and services required (including a series of rooms available in Halls 12 and 14) for numerous high-level meetings to take place amongst officials and ministers involved in overseeing and implementing Spain’s Presidency. Among the meetings that have already been staged, we might mention: the event organised by top officials at the Home Affairs Ministries of the EU countries and from the United States on 11 and 12 January; the meeting of the Heads of Energy Policy, whose aim was the prepare the conclusions for the Energy Action Plan 2010-2012, which took place on 21st January; a meeting on fundamental rights within the EU, which was organised by the Spanish Ministry of Justice on 1st and 2nd February; and various seminars on the battle against terrorism, organised by the Spanish Ministry for Home Affairs, which took place between 8 and 11 February.
Finally, among the seven fairs that were organised independently but took place at IFEMA’s facilities throughout the first quarter of the year, two were especially important and strongly representative of their respective sectors. These event included Exporeclam, the Professional Exhibition for Promotional and Advertising Gifts, which took place between 26 and 28 January 2010, and Pulire, the Spanish Trade Show for Professional Cleaning and Environmental Hygiene, which took place between 23 and 25 March.
