UFI News

I am extremely happy and honoured to address you all, our global UFI community which really is the global exhibition community – as I assume the Presidency of UFI for the coming year.

My last two columns here carried big UFI staff news, respectively: Chris Skeith will take over as UFI’s CEO on January 1, 2025, and Kai Hattendorf will leave UFI after a decade in the CEO’s chair (or, for a fair share of that, an airplane seat).

The launch of UFI’s new “Exhibition Essentials” education programme in Riyadh, Saudi-Arabia. Our first ever UFI Americas Conference in Monterrey, Mexico. The 3rd Asia CEO Summit in Singapore. The Sustainable Events Summit in New York City that UFI supports – I have to admit that, even as the UFI President, I have struggled on occasion to keep up with the stream of news and updates that the team has shared with me in the past weeks.

Here we are – our next peak exhibition season is underway. I don’t know about you, but September looks more than just packed in my diary – including a trip to Paris this week for our regular September UFI Executive Committee meeting.

With June wrapping up, the first half of 2024 already lies behind us. On my way back from the European Conference a few days back, I scribbled down some notes, remembering some of the things I have experienced as your UFI President. The list got surprisingly long very fast – a testament to our association's intense work, always encouraging us to be a part of it. 

We are a few days out from our European Conference in Zurich. The content looks promising, and I personally am especially looking forward to meeting face to face with this year’s group of our Next Generation Leaders, having chaired the selection jury.

The sun is shining in Dubai today as I write this. You may wonder why I seem to be pointing out the obvious, but indeed, that was different just a short while back, as we faced unprecedented rainfall here.

It’s peak exhibition season still all around the world. So far, our industry seems to be on track to achieve the growth projected by hundreds of you in our latest UFI Global Barometer.

Dear colleagues, dear friends, Going through my daily dose of [...]