Fiera di Roma Joins Ranks of Mega Venues

By Gary Tufel -- Tradeshow Week, 1/30/2006

Rome will soon have a meeting and exposition complex that it hopes, despite stiff competition, will vault it into the top ranks of European facilities.

The New Rome Fair (Nuovo Fiera di Roma) will span nearly 1 million square meters (almost 10.7 million square feet) and ultimately offer 101,000 sq. m. (1 million sq. ft.) of exhibit space, a business center and a 4,000-seat flexible conference center in the middle of the exhibition center.

It will replace the existing Rome Fair, which offers 35,000 sq. m. (377,000 sq. ft.) of prime exhibit space.

The New Rome Fair's first eight pavilions, featuring 67,000 sq. m. (721,000 sq. ft.) of exhibit space, will open April 21. The entire 14-pavilion expo center is expected to be fully operational by year's end, and the entire 22-pavilion complex is slated for completion by 2009.

The venue's first event, Orocapital, will open Sept. 22, followed by Building and Plant Engineering in November and Arts and Crafts in December. Tourism and food industry exhibitions are scheduled for early 2007.

All pavilions are on a single floor, fully cabled and air-conditioned, and feature a rectangular plan without pillars. Five minutes from Rome's Leonardo da Vinci Airport and accessible by subway, the facility will also include parking for 14,000 cars.

Rome's mega-sized venue competitors say they aren't worried. Besides large messes in nearby Germany, they include the Fiera Milano convention center, a multimillion-dollar facility that opened last year and is at the heart of a planned redesign of Milan that some say will transform the city into Europe's tradeshow capital.

Fiera Milano, also called Nuovo Polo (New Complex), is five miles from the old Fiera Milano center in downtown Milan, now called Fiera Milano City. According to Tradeshow Week's Major Exhibit Hall Directory, the two Fiera Milano facilities together offer 5.6 million sq. ft. of exhibit space, including 646,000 sq. ft. of outdoor space.

That surpasses the 5.4 million sq. ft. Messegelande Hannover in Hannover, Germany, and the 4.7 million sq. ft. Messe Muenchen in Munich, Germany, at 4.7 million sq. ft.

Milan is fifth in population among European cities and currently attracts 88 tradeshows per year, second in Europe to Paris' 100.

Fiera Milano isn't worried about Rome's renovation plans. "Unfortunately, the renovation of the old structures comes a little late, when the new exhibition ground of Fiera Milano is already functioning and operational. Ten years ago it would have been a different story," a Fiera Milano spokesperson said.

New Rome Fair Chairman Andrea Mondello, however, said his facility offers an extraordinary opportunity to grow business tourism and conferences, and could easily remake Rome into an economic model for the rest of Italy.

The new Rome center plans to host expanded versions of events previously held in the old center, and organize international fairs and exhibitions through partnership agreements with show managers in each industry. The new center also will target sports, art and cultural events.

Facility services will include restaurants and cafeterias, travel agencies, a post office, banks and Internet service centers. Three buildings will each feature 21 conference rooms, with dedicated areas for administrative and technical services. There will be 500 hotel rooms available inside the expo center and 4,000 more nearby.

One of the new facility's investors is Rimini Fiera, which has tentatively agreed to provide •355 million ($430 million) in the first phase. Ultimately, the new venue is expected to generate annual revenue of •700 million to •800 million ($848 million to $969 million). Fiera di Roma and Gruppo Lamano have 75-percent and 25-percent stakes, respectively.