Summer Seminar to Drop 'XM' From UFI-XM Co-Op

The former UFI-XM Summer Seminar is losing half of its production team. Starting with this summer's event, scheduled June 14-16 at the Zagreb Fair in Zagreb, Croatia, UFI, the Global Assn. of the Exhibition Industry, will once again be the sole producer of the event.

Since 1993 UFI has organized the summer seminars, which focus mainly on marketing, technology and convention center issues. In 2002 UFI signed an agreement with XM-Associated Exhibition Organisers to co-organize several conferences for exhibition organizers around the globe, with the partnership meant to spread their combined reach. The summer seminar, however, was the only joint production that ever got off the ground.

Since XM President Eef DeFerrante reportedly encountered legal troubles while traveling in Southeast Asia last year, many of XM's activities have been on hold and several employees have left the organization. XM Europe did not respond to Tradeshow Week's inquiries about the Summer Seminar.

"At this point, we're trying to figure out how we'll take over the Summer Seminar," said Lili Eigl, a spokesperson for UFI. "But we're all in agreement that the seminar will go forward as scheduled."

XM Europe was founded in 1999 in DeMeern, the Netherlands, with the main objective of organizing educational forums for exhibition organizers. As the group expanded, it established XM Asia, and in 2001 changed the name of the global umbrella operation to XM-Associated Exhibition Organisers.