Fairs: Simei postponed by one year. Appointment to 2022, from November 15 to 18, in Milan

After losing, due to Covid, 80% of its 2020 turnover, out of an estimated 1 billion euros, as explained to WineNews by Maurizio Danese, president of Aefi (the association of Italian trade fairs) and Veronafiere, the Italian trade fair sector is looking for a relaunch. Many events have been rescheduled and are being rescheduled in the second half of 2021 (such as Vinitaly, the most important fair dedicated to Italian wine, scheduled from June 20 to 23 in Verona, and originally planned for April 18 to 21), hoping for a clear improvement in the framework related to the pandemic, both in terms of organization and in terms of international travel, a fundamental aspect for large events dedicated to sectors in which exports have a very important, if not predominant, weight.
But there are also those who, already now, with events scheduled until the end of the year, decide to move the horizon even further ahead, looking at 2022. And this is the case of Simei, the Unione Italiana Vini (UIV) fair, world leader in wine-making and bottling technologies (a sector in which Italy is no. 1 in the world, with a turnover of 2.9 billion euros), initially scheduled from November 16 to 19, 2021, which, however, has been postponed to next year, again at Fiera Milano, from November 15 to 18.
A choice, that of Simei, which is similar, remaining with regard to the great wine events, to that made by Prowein in Dusseldorf, one of the most important appointments of the wine business market at world level which has been postponed to March 27-29, 2022 (originally scheduled for March 19-23, 2021).
“The postponement and rescheduling of the exhibition - explains a press note from Unione Italiana Vini (UIV) - are the result of careful consideration and sharing with the reference association for the sector (Anformape) and with the companies in the sector, and are a direct consequence of the health emergency. At present it is not possible, in fact, to guarantee the usual quality of business that has enabled Simei to become over the years the international event of reference for the sector”
“Simei - said the Secretary General of UIV, Paolo Castelletti - is a complex business-to-business event, also from a logistic point of view, with a strong international propensity: it is therefore difficult to guarantee, several months in advance, an adequate business response to the important investments made by exhibitors and to the expectations of operators. We are, however, studying opportunities for analysis and professional meetings on and off line during the year to maintain strong ties with the sector”. The biennial fair Simei, which has also grown a lot on the front of technologies for bottling other beverages (beer, oil, spirits, juices), closed its 2019 edition with 33,000 operators from over 90 countries and more than 500 exhibitors. Italy is a world leader in the sector with a turnover of 2.9 billion euros a year: of this, 70% is for export for an active trade balance of 1.8 billion euros.