TESTING TIMES FOR EMIF

10 mars 2011

First of all, I wonder how many PAGtour readers have heard of EMIF. I have never seen it mentioned here.  EMIF, the European Meetings Industry Fair is aimed at anyone involved in conferences, meetings, events, incentive and business travel.

It has a long history. EMIF started in its current form in 2001 at the Heysel as a competitor to something called Meeting & Weltra which had been around for a number of years and needed a serious facelift. EMIF won the battle and Meeting & Weltra was finally put out of its misery.

However, EMIF in the eyes of many has never lived up to its full potential, even in the golden year of 2007 when it was sold handsomely to the easyFairs subsidiary of Belgium’s leading exhibition company, the Artexis Group.

Since then the number of international exhibitors fell dramatically and professional visitor numbers went down from over 6,000 in its heyday to around 2,500 in 2010. After 3 troubled years, and a change of venue, EMIF was finally incorporated into the main Artexis exhibition portfolio under a completely new management team. The million dollar question: will this be enough to save it?

The answer my friend  is blowing in next week’s wind!

So much for history, back to the here and now… EMIF is about to open its doors for the 10^th time next week on Tuesday 15 & Wednesday 16 March at Tour & Taxis in Brussels. I would definitely still recommend anyone with any connection to meetings, events and business travel to drop by for at least a couple of hours. EMIF for me has two major strengths. Firstly there is nowhere else you will find together in one place so many Belgian meeting & event products from all over the country, from Flanders, Wallonia and Brussels. It’s worth a visit just to see such a demonstration of national unity! But you will also find inspiring close-to-home ideas.

Secondly, there is a good conference and seminar programme, completely free of charge for professional visitors. It is not often that this happens either these days. There is home-grown Belgian as well international talent to talk about burning issues of the moment: How to prove the value of meetings & events in hard cash terms; how meetings must change for the Facebook generation; how to organise hybrid meetings and take advantage of the latest in 3D technology...and a lot more besides.

Have a look at the educational programme for both corporates & associations. You can register online to avoid queuing.

 www.emif.com

Bruce Taylor