BTC CHANGES DATE AND MOVES TO RIMINI, IN LINE WITH MARKET REQUESTS. ENHANCED CONTENT AND LOWER COSTS
TO MAXIMISE BUSINESS OPPORTUNITIES.
BUYER PRE-REGISTRATION OPENS ON 4 FEBRUARY

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 has confirmed 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.

1 FEBRUARY 2010 – 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.