International Crowd Joins Marmomac Online

VERONA, Italy – The stone industry came to Verona this year, albeit by the information superhighway than Italian autostrades.

The cloud-based Marmomac ReStart Digital Edition hosted 4,927 networked professionals from 135 countries from Sept. 30-Oct. 2, including 200 top-buyers invited by Veronafiere and the Italian Foreign Trade Commission (ICE).

Marmomac ReStart , organized by event producer Veronafiere after cancellation of the traditional in-person event in Verona, also saw 210 companies exhibit with virtual stands, including 111 international firms from 22 countries. More than 3,100 products and 840 projects were uploaded to exhibitor profiles.

The hit list for Marmomac ReStart Digital Edition traffic saw Italy take first place, followed by India, Brazil, the United States, Turkey, Spain, the United Kingdom, Portugal, Germany and China.

The exhibition also featured on-line content, with 158 live streaming event, including webinars, company presentations and Marmomac Academy refresher courses for architects and designers. All in all, 67 speakers took turns on-screen.

The most-popular market focus session involved Brazil. Tthere was also significant interest for in-depth information about the United States and China.

“We are very pleased with the result of this first entirely digital event,” said Giovanni Mantovani, CEO of Veronafiere. “Natural stone within reach of a click proved to be popular, especially among international visitors who accounted for a 60% share, thereby validating the level of internationality already achieved by the physically attended trade fair.

“The global natural stone community responded well and this confirms the huge appeal of Marmomac. Even the digital version proved to be an effective matching tool, with an average score for the quality of B2B contacts of 4.5 out of 5.”