“ONE WORLD – ONE MARKET”
in Thessaloniki
With names such as Valentino and Roberto Cavalli participating, and an all- impressive American pavilion among a host of other national representations, this year’s 72nd Thessaloniki International Trade Fair taking place from September 8 to 16 at the International Exhibition Center is expected to be the most successful ever and to reestablish its status as the biggest and most important exhibition for international trade, innovation and opportunities in south eastern Europe.
The central message of this year’s HELEXPO will be ‘One World – One Market’ and the fair will be inaugurated by the Prime Minister of Greece, Konstantinos Karamanlis.
Within the framework of the 72nd HELEXPO, a series of themed events will take place, an institution that started in 2005 and has been improving ever since. One of the most popular events is AUTOLAND, this year focusing on city cars. Especially for this event, part of the exhibition center has been turned into a virtual miniature city, allowing the visitors to take a test drive in simulated city conditions.
In addition, featured will be DECOLAND (dedicated to decoration that will be open to the public on Tuesday 11 and Thursday 13 September), ACADEMIA (education and books), ENERGYLAND (energy, modern systems and alternative energy forms), PLAYLAND (children’s entertainment) and STATELAND (relations between the state and the citizens).
A very significant novelty will be the event called HOBBYMANIA, that will present a series of exhibits concerning spare time based on imagination and creativity.
At the same time, in addition to the international participations, the central event called GLOBAL EXCHANGE will host the 3rd TIF BUSINESS FORUM on ‘Creativity-Design-Passion: The New Soul of Business’ and GLOBAL EXCHANGE ETHNIC, focusing on cultural heritage and traditional products.
FASHION FORWARD INTERNATIONAL THESSALONIKI will also be one of the prominent events of this HELEXPO. Its increasing success is evident by this year’s presence of world-renowned fashion designers such as Valentino and Roberto Cavalli, who will present their next season collections. Moreover, top Greek fashion designers will also present their own collections. Due to the increasing number of visitors, this year’s FASHION FORWARD INTERNATIONAL will be held at Palais des Sports.
A real ‘innovation’ of the 72nd HELEXPO will be INNOVATION, a themed event dedicated to innovative products, presenting intelligent inventions and in general how our everyday life will be in the next years.
Finally, among the entertaining events, the successful DISC FESTIVAL will include daily concerts by the most famous stars of the Greek music scene.
HELEXPO’s themed events combine in the most successful way interesting topics with entertainment. Apart from the parallel events, one of the most spectacular exhibits for the general public will be the wax figures of Eleftherios Venizelos, Konstantinos Karamanlis and Andreas Papandreou from Madame Tussaud's Museum. The famous London wax museum accepted HELEXPO's request to present three of the wax figures from the museum’s collection during the 72nd Thessaloniki International Trade Fair.
As in the past three years, a series of presentations aiming to promote the 72nd HELEXPO to Greek and non-Greek businesses have been organized at the Chambers of the Greek regions, inviting the businesses to place themselves at the center of the events and take advantage of the opportunities for trade and high return transactions.
In addition, at a special event in Athens organized in honor of the ambassadors, speeches were delivered by the Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs Mr. Evripidis Stylianidis, the Chairman of HELEXPO Mr. Aristotelis Thomopoulos and the elected municipal officer Mr. Themis Kartsiotis, the 72nd HELEXPO. These speeches confirmed HELEXPO’s business orientation and its dynamic opening to the international business environment.
HELEXPO will be open between 5pm and 11pm on weekdays, and between 10am and 10pm on the weekends.
