Attendance by 8,500 professionals from 80 countries exceeds the organisation’s expectations.

8,500 professionals from 80 countries attend the WindEurope Conference & Exhibition 2019, held on 2 to 4 April at Bilbao Exhibition Centre, which has generated an economic impact of 10,533,629 euros in terms of Gross Domestic Product. This figure, which has surpassed the expectations of the event organiser, WindEurope, has had a very significant impact due to the international nature of professionals taking part in the event. In fact, more than 50% of those attending came from outside Spain. The countries with the highest representation were Germany, the United Kingdom, Denmark, France, the Netherlands, Belgium, Italy, the United States, Portugal, Norway and Sweden.

The assessment by Giles Dickson, CEO of WindEurope, is very positive: “Holding our annual event here has been a very good experience for the European wind energy industry. BEC’s facilities for setting up a trade show and congress are wonderful; Bilbao is a fantastic city for everyone and the fact that it has an increasingly significant role in the wind power sector is also a first-rate reason to come here.”

This assessment leaves the door open for Bilbao Exhibition Centre to host new editions of WindEurope. The event has its headquarters during the even-numbered years in Hamburg and is itinerant during the odd-numbered years. Thus, Bilbao took up the baton from Amsterdam in 2017 and has passed it on to Copenhagen this year. Both the companies and the public entities that have taken part in the Bilbao edition have shown great interest in hosting the event once again.

Bilbao Exhibition Centre is working on the recruitment and organisation of events relating to strategic sectors and international projection for reinforcing the Basque positioning as an international business destination. In fact, during this year’s scheduling of the Basque exhibition and congress venue, high level international trade shows are highlighted such as Rail Live, Architect at Work, World Maritime Week or +Industry.

In this section, the celebration of Wind Europe responds fully to this strategic planning. Wind power will be the primary means of energy generation in Europe by 2028 and the Basque industrial fabric, present throughout the whole value chain, is destined to play a leading role.

Communications Department, April 2019.