“ORGANISING EXHIBITION PRESENCE IN THE TIME OF COVID-19” AEFI ONLINE COURSES FOR A “SAFE” AND SUCCESSFUL RESTART

The new cycle of online courses organised by AEFI – The Italian Exhibition and Trade Fair Association has ended. Specifically designed for companies participating in trade fairs and also open to non-associated exhibition sector operators and professionals.

The training activity of the Association foresees a series of appointments offering all the information and updates, including new legislation, and all the tools necessary for the management and organisation of the restarting of the events, with exhibition centres and spaces in line with anti-Covid safety measures.
Four courses – Wednesday 8, Friday 10, Wednesday 15 and Friday 17 July – to further explore the issues related to Logistics and safety; Stand design; Communication and promotion at the trade fair; Digital Marketing.

The first appointment on 8 July, thanks to the contributions from Nazario Pedini, coordinator of the Technical Commission, and Giovanni Barbato, coordinator of the AEFI Legal Commission, examined the aspects of health and safety logistics with respect to the Covid-19 pandemic emergency: a careful analysis of the legislation, the impacts on exhibiting activities and direction on how to organise and manage the events safely thanks to the guidelines contained in the protocol developed by AEFI. The detailed document prepared by the pool of AEFI professionals – who, in addition to having legal and health and safety expertise, know the sector inside out with all its organisational processes – take into consideration all the structural elements that characterise the sector and comply with the national legislation on the Covid-19 pandemic emergency. The protocol provides for measures of a health and hygiene and behavioural nature and contains measures that follow a precautionary principle and implement the regulations of the legislator, as well as the recommendations of the Health Authority: from social distancing to information on the correct use of PPE, from health check procedures at the entrances to the correct cleaning and sanitisation of the venue where the event takes place, before, during and at the end of every event, up to the Covid-19 emergency health plan, which also provides appropriate rooms and a medical station at exhibitions.

On Friday 10 July, the session assigned to “Stand design” with focus on how to implement the concept and create a functional stand of great impact, while respecting the anti Covid-19 legislation, saw the intervention of Alberto Maria Prina, star of the design world and “installation” teacher at the Politecnico di Milano, at the Accademia di Brera – where he also held an Urban Design course – and at the IULM University where he teaches on the Design Management course. Nazarion Pedini for AEFI and Marco Fogarolo for ASAL/Assoallestimenti illustrated the practical implications for company stands.

The “Communication and promotion at the trade fair” courses on Thursday 16 July saw the participation of Riccardo Facci – owner of the Facci & Pollini creative agency, who in recent years has carried out some communications projects for AEFI – underlined the necessity for coherence between the need to which the product responds and the promise to satisfy it, values also expressed by the contribution from Professor Giulio Sapelli who encouraged action and hope.

Finally on Friday 17 July, Emanuela Berna, digital communication strategy consultant, summarised AEFI’s training path in relation to the use of tools to improve the experience of exhibitor customers before and after the event.
The course was enhanced by Roberto Bonzi and Barbara Del Bene’s testimony which described how over time they had managed to experiment with the tools and the techniques learned during the AEFI training courses.

Concluding the work, Loredana Sarti, Secretary General of AEFI, underlined the necessity to have all the tools to bring Italian creativity and work to the world soon because, as is highlighted in the book by Professor Giulio Sapelli called “Pandemia e Resurrezione” (“Pandemic and Resurrection”), “work is the main tool for delivering SOCIAL EQUITY, WELLBEING, SAFETY, JUSTICE”. And exhibitions can do a great deal in this sense for the development of employment.

AEFI – Associazione Esposizioni e Fiere Italiane, a private non-profit Association, was established in 1983 with the goal of generating synergies between the most important Italian exhibition districts. Today it has 40 Associated exhibition centres, which organise over 1,000 events per year on a total exhibition space of 4.2 million square metres. Nearly all international and national trade fairs which take place each year in Italy are held in AEFI-member exhibition districts.

AEFI is a privileged partner for operators and institutions alike, and its role is to support members through the development of activities and programmes in the sphere of training, marketing, promotion and research, as well as to provide services for trade fairs through the activities of its Committees: Exhibition Hub Technical Committee, Legal-Administrative Committee, Internationalisation Committee and Trade Fairs Network Committee. On the internationalisation front, AEFI supports members thanks to agreements with strategic markets. To date, partnerships have been agreed with Iran, Taiwan, Lebanon, India, Thailand, South Africa and Poland, with AmCham, the American Chamber of Commerce in Italy, with CENTREX, the International Exhibition Statistics Union and with EUPIC-EU Project Innovation Center. A memorandum of understanding has been signed with SACE and SIMEST.

AEFI has promoted the foundation of ISFCert, the Certification Institute for Exhibition Industry Statistics which, through rigorous methodologies, enables Italian organisers to present and recognise standardised data, in the name of transparency and reliability. AEFI represents Italian trade fairs in UFI – Union of International Trade Fairs.