The Milan-Cortina Winter Olympics, some strategic acquisitions in the field of setup services, logistics and products, and a favorable calendar: these factors have driven the first half of the year, which ended very positively for Fiera Milano (revenues at 245.7 million euros, up 38.2% compared to the same period in 2025, profit doubled and EBITDA up 49%). But “These are not cyclical or temporary events,” clarifies CEO and General Manager Francesco Conci: on the contrary, “these elements are the result of the strategy launched by the Industrial Plan presented two years ago.” A plan aimed at progressively transforming the Milanese group from a trade fair operator to an integrated platform of business, services, congresses, entertainment, and international development.
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The golden moment of live events
“This evolution takes place in a particularly favorable global context,” observes Conci, who expects a consolidation of the results achieved in the second half of the year and then strong growth in 2027 and 2028. The live events and shows sector is indeed characterized by strong growth, which increasingly also interests financial investors: “in just five weeks some of the largest international private equity funds have invested over 5 billion dollars acquiring major event organizers such as Hyve, Emerald, Questex, and CloserStill,” says the CEO. And companies, despite the difficulties and uncertainties of the global geopolitical and economic context (or perhaps precisely because of this), are increasing budgets dedicated to physical meetings. “Large events are once again considered strategic economic infrastructures,” adds Conci.
New offer for a new demand
To intercept this demand – but also the new needs linked to it – Fiera Milano is investing to evolve its business, becoming precisely an integrated platform capable of offering advanced spaces and services and thus attracting more and more international events, as will happen in autumn with Ces Unveiled (the European promotional stage of the world’s largest technology fair), but also with CPHI, the most important global pharmaceutical congress, which has chosen Milan for the third time in a few years. Spaces for trade fair events which, although successful, will tend more and more to reduce covered square meters, and for congresses which, on the contrary, require increasingly larger surfaces and innovative formulas (the so-called “ConfExpo,” which now represent 63% of European itinerant events). But also spaces for live events, such as the Live Dome which, inherited from the Olympics, will be fully operational starting from March next year and will strengthen Fiera Milano’s opening path also to the B2C market, as well as the traditional B2B one.
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Second half and beyond
“The second half of 2026 represents a concrete snapshot of this transformation,” adds Conci: Fiera Milano’s calendar indeed reaffirms the company’s core business – an international development tool for Italian companies – while at the same time opening up to new areas, with attention also to the consumer target. Events related to the main Italian and international production chains are planned, from fashion to energy, from mechanics to pharmaceuticals, to craftsmanship, with events such as Eicma, Bimu, and Artigiano in Fiera, but also to the world of entertainment, such as Milan Games Week & Cartoomics and Ces Unveiled itself.
The group’s growth abroad also continues, which in December will bring the second edition of Host Arabia to Riyadh, which will debut in Orlando, USA, in 2027, while Find (Design Fair Asia) will inaugurate a new phase by moving from Singapore to Bangkok.
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