The number of exhibitors at the next Seafood Expo Global in Barcelona is approaching pre-pandemic levels
The upcoming Seafood Expo Global (SEG) scheduled for April 26-28 at the Gran Via de la Fira de Barcelona exhibition center in Barcelona, Spain, currently has just over 1,500 exhibitors engaged, or around 80% of the 1,900 companies who exhibited at SEG 2019 in Brussels, Belgium.
The 2020 and 2021 SEG shows have been canceled due to COVID.
Diversified Communications, owners of SEG and Seafood Expo North America (SENA), announced at a Thursday press conference in Barcelona that the event will include exhibits from 76 countries, according to the company’s media arm. SeafoodSource.
The upcoming event, according to the report, will feature approximately 39,545 square meters of net exhibit space, which is equivalent to 97% of the size of the 2019 event, which was the biggest ever edition of the show.
Show organizers said they expect a reduced presence from China and Ukraine, and no exhibitors from Russia and Belarus.
Diversified Communications has banned Russian companies from exhibiting at the upcoming event, according to a Russia-based events and trade promotions group. The action is related to the invasion of Ukraine by Russia.
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The event was originally scheduled to move from Brussels, where it had been held for 27 years, to Barcelona in 2020, but those plans were dashed by the emergence of the global COVID pandemic.
Diversified Communications hosted its SENA show in Boston in mid-March.
Ahead of the show, many top seafood companies – including Peter Pan Seafood, MultiX, Beaver Street Fisheries, High Liner Foods, Mowi and Cermaq – pulled out of the event due to safety concerns related to the COVID.
The show ended with around 754 exhibitors, significantly lower than the 1,329 exhibitors the company said attended the trade event in 2019.