International conventions, conferences for car dealer managers and distributors, presentations for the media and ad filming… Over the past year, various car manufacturers based in Germany, Korea, Sweden and the Czech Republic, to name a few, showed their interest in the range of facilities, versatility and innovation that the exhibition and conference site offers.

Several vehicle events have been held over the past few months, including World Dealer Conference Skoda 2017, which took place from 25 January to 3 February 2017 in halls 3, 5 and 6, and in the South Atrium at BEC. It gathered around 4,500 car dealer managers from 72 countries, in 11 groups of 420 people. Over the two days that guests were present at BEC, their schedules included several private meetings, test drives of more than 250 vehicles, and the much-awaited world presentation of the new Kodiaq Fabia. Nearly 1,500 people were involved in organising the event, which had a financial impact of more than €4.7 million.

Fotógrafo: Olli Waldhauer

Hyundai, Korea’s largest car manufacturer, on the other hand, chose BEC’s Press Room to present its latest model to the media on 18 May: the electric vehicle Hyundai Ioniq.

Back in November, before Skoda’s and Hyundai’s meetings took place, motor company SEAT chose BEC’s Auditorium as the venue to hold the convention in which they presented their latest SEAT León model. A total of 250 car dealer managers from Spain took part in the convention.

The agencies and advertising departments in charge of creating adverts for motor companies like Volvo and Volkswagen have also found that BEC’s 170,000 m² facilities are the ideal place to film their adverts.

From 8 to 10 May, German production company MPG Media Picture Gmbh, supported by Basque production company Basque Films, filmed part of the advert for the new VW Polo on the street around Bilbao Exhibition Centre; and just three months later, BEC’s main hall was turned into a hotel entrance for the new Volvo advert. A film set was also built at the same time in Bizkaia Arena.