Six finalists showed off their exhibition related social media and operations programmes for a final judging by their peers during the recent UFI Focus Meetings on Social Media and Operations hosted by Kyiv Expo Plaza (Ukraine).
These annual competitions organized by UFI, the Global Association of the Exhibition Industry, recognize innovative and successful programmes in the fields of exhibition operations and ICT.
As Maria Martinez, Vice Chair of UFI’s ICT committee stated, “the UFI Award competitions encourage the exhibition industry to develop focused programmes and share them with the entire trade fair community."
"This is an ideal opportunity to develop best practices based on successfully implemented programmes.”
A tie vote by the jury of 60 participants at the 2011 Operations Award recognizes the exceptional programmes of both Freeman (USA) and BF Servizi (BolognaFiere Group, Italy) on “smart uses of IT to improve your operations.”
Andreas Winckler, Chair of the UFI Operations Committee, explained that, “once again the UFI Operations Award represented a very high level competition. The fact that two of the entries received exactly the same number of votes from a jury of their peers confirms that BolognaFiere Group and Freeman provided convincing and sophisticated concepts.”
Cape Town International Convention Centre placed a close third in this year’s UFI operations competition challenge.
The theme of the UFI Social Media Focus Meeting and the 2011 ICT Award theme, was “best practices of social media within the exhibition industry.”
Finalists IFEMA (Spain), Poznan International Fair (Cavaliada - Poland) and Reed Exhibitions (Reed POP - USA) pitched their programmes to a critical jury of Social Media Focus Meeting participants from 17 countries and placing first, second and third respectively.
Pelayo Santos, Project Manager of IFEMA’s winning entry, enthusiastically acknowledged their win saying, “UFI recognition of our work is a great motivator!”
The winners of the 2011 UFI awards will be recognized at the UFI Congress to be held in Valencia from 9-12 November, 2011. They will join the 2011 winners of the UFI Marketing Award and the International Art of the Fair Poster Competition on the podium before this 78th international gathering of exhibition leaders.
