Barcelona reveals muscle with gala’s | Business | EUROtoday

Fira de Barcelona begins 2026 with good omens. On December 12, the corporate offered its annual steadiness sheet for the yr 2025 and its forecasts for the brand new yr. During the assembly of the General Council of the establishment, chaired by the mayor of Barcelona, ​​Jaume Collboni, Constantí Serrallonga, normal director of Fira, highlighted “the constant growth in turnover and activity” and the “solid portfolio of world-class events” of the consortium he directs. For Serrallonga, Fira de Barcelona “is experiencing one of its best moments”, supported by “extraordinary” figures and by its skill “to attract large fairs and conferences, especially in the technological and medical fields, with a strong impact on the local ecosystem.”

The honest establishment has closed 2025 with revenues that exceed 350 million euros for the primary time, 17% greater than what was billed within the earlier yr. This interprets into an working end result or ebitda that can also be unprecedented: 60 million euros, 8% greater than that obtained within the 2024 tutorial yr. Fira thus accomplished a yr of clear development and appreciable hustle and bustle, with greater than 300 occasions organized between congresses, gala’s, enterprise conferences and sports activities competitions.

In parallel, these liable for the honest entity have continued to advance strategic actions corresponding to the reworking of the Montjuïc venue, for which the architectural initiatives of the primary part of the works have already been chosen, and the development of Hall Zero, a brand new pavilion of avant-garde structure that can add an extra 60,000 m2 to the Gran Via venue.

Another nice milestone of the yr that has simply concluded is the start of Fira’s administration of the Circuit de Barcelona-Catalunya. In the phrases of Pau Relat, president of the board of administrators, by incorporating the Circuit’s occasions into its annual calendar of occasions, Fira de Barcelona “takes the first steps towards the diversification of its activity, successfully overcoming the challenge of organizing the Moto GP and Formula 1 grand prix”. Relat considers that this important step ahead drives Fira “to advance in the large expansion and remodeling projects of the venues to continue being an economic and social engine, strengthening our legacy in the territory.”

During the 2025 monetary yr, the areas managed by Fira de Barcelona have hosted high occasions corresponding to Smart City Expo World Congress, Automobile Barcelona, ​​Infarma, Ibtm World or Barcelona Bridal Fashion Week. Also medical conferences corresponding to these on Lung Cancer (WCLC), Rheumatology (EULAR) or Multiple Sclerosis (ECTRIMS), the UNESCO Cultural Policy Conference (Mondiacult) or company conferences of multinational corporations corresponding to Gartner, HPO or SAP. In addition, traditional occasions for the Barcelona establishment corresponding to Construmat, Salón Náutico, Gastronomic Forum Barcelona, ​​Barcelona Wine Week, B-Travel, Caravaning, Saló de l’Ocupació, Manga y Comic, Saló de l’Ensenyament, Sónar and Padel World Summit have as soon as once more been current.

As a complement to the extraordinary exercise on the native stage, Fira de Barcelona has considerably strengthened its presence overseas, managing the 2 exhibition facilities in China that it took over in 2022 (within the cities of Xuzhou and Nanchang) and collaborating within the group of as much as 12 worldwide exhibitions, from IOT Brazil to the Hospitality Expo in Mexico, together with the Smart City Expo in Kuala Lumpur, Cartagena de Indias, Argentina, Qatar and Chile.

Looking forward to 2026, Fira expects that its present dynamics of consolidation and progress will proceed and the edge of 360 million euros in turnover will probably be exceeded. In the yr that has simply began, the fiftieth anniversary of Alimentaria + Hostelco will probably be celebrated, an occasion that began in 1976, in a context through which Spanish merchandise discovered critical difficulties in being exported overseas, and that in 2025 introduced collectively greater than 3,300 corporations, 1,000 of them worldwide. If we discuss medical congresses, Fira is getting ready to host these of the European Respiratory Society (ERS), the European Breast Cancer Council (EBCC) or the European Heart Failure Association (ESC-HFA). The sport can have its massive occasions in May, with the International Moto GP Grand Prix, and in June, with the Formula 1.

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Among the novelties, the arrival in Barcelona of the subsequent Goya Awards gala and the arrival to the town of Fespa Global Print Expo, the world’s main honest for the big format printing trade, stand out. And to all this we should add new editions of, amongst others, Barcelona Wine Week, Seafood, Liber, Expoquimia, Salón Náutico, Equiplast, Alimentaria, Gastronomic Forum, Saló de l’Ocupació, Cómic y Manga or B-Travel, in addition to the EdTech Congress of technological innovation utilized to schooling or the Battery Tech Europe, targeted on battery know-how.

Although maybe the 2 most essential occasions deliberate for 2026 are those who must do with the growth and modernization of Fira’s infrastructure. During the yr, work will start on the three new palaces that can profoundly rework the Montjuïc precinct, the multifunctional one, the communications one and the congress one. The final two are in-depth renovations of current buildings and the primary will probably be a brand new pavilion (with a light-weight steel construction façade, in a determined dedication to transparency) whose design is carried out by the architects Smiljan Radić, Miquel Mariné Núñez, Beatriz Borque and Cesar Rueda Bonet. With two flooring and an exhibition space that can exceed 20,000 sq. meters, the brand new area will probably be prepared in 2029 and will probably be inaugurated coinciding with the centenary of the Barcelona International Exhibition of 1929, one of many nice occasions within the metropolis’s financial historical past.

As far as Hall Zero is worried, the brand new pavilion on the Gran Via venue is progressing at tempo. As quickly as it’s accomplished, the area accessible to Fira Barcelona in L’Hospitalet de Llobregat will go from the present 24,000 sq. meters to greater than 300,000, a rise in keeping with the consortium’s growth coverage. The works are scheduled to be accomplished within the third quarter of 2026.