Can an event as lively and engaging as the Meeting in Rimini be described with numbers? In reality, the figures for the event are anything but cold; in fact, they tell us about the uniqueness of an event like the Meeting from a particular perspective. Here they are presented by chapters.

Spaces and Setups The 2024 Meeting will cover approximately 120,000 square meters of the Rimini Fairgrounds. For the past year, the team of architects organizing the spaces has developed 45 successive versions of the master plan to arrange the 23 pavilions that will host the event. These days, the pre-meeting volunteers are covering them with 35,000 square meters of carpet and decorating with 1,500 plants, including 63 birches up to 4 meters tall. For the setups, 7,000 square meters of wood and 3,580 linear meters of slatted wood have been used. Six garden squares will enrich the spaces, while the offices will occupy 5,000 square meters. Environmental attention is also crucial: 250 kg of PET plastic will be collected thanks to the collaboration between the Meeting and Coca-Cola, and 5 eco-compactors have been installed.

Conferences and Meetings The program includes 140 conferences with around 450 Italian and international speakers, 100 of whom are from abroad. Almost all of them will be in person, with less than twenty speakers joining live online.

Exhibitions There will be 16 exhibitions, curated by 60 curators. Currently, 70 students from the Brera Academy are working on beautifying the exhibition spaces, designed by 15 architects. Six catalogs and two volumes will be produced from the exhibitions. Nine of the 2024 edition’s exhibitions will later be made itinerant and presented in various Italian cities starting in September.

Performances The program includes 18 performances, distributed across 3 external locations, including the prestigious Teatro Galli, and 2 internal ones, with a total participation of 80 artists. Tickets for the performances at Teatro Galli are available on Vivaticket.

Children’s Village The Children’s Village, with its 3,700 square meters, will host a rich program of exhibitions, meetings, performances, and workshops, for a total of over 200 events. Enthusiasm is already high: in 2023, it is estimated that around 17,000 children and teens participated, and many workshops are already fully booked.

Sports Citadel The space dedicated to sports has more than doubled compared to 2023, exceeding 15,000 square meters, in collaboration with the Italian Sports Center and Derthona Basket. Participation is also substantial in this area, with various sporting events selling out.

Catering The Meeting will have 18 dining points, offering various regional specialties and options for those who are gluten intolerant. There are 580 tables for dining with 3,500 seats. What will be the most loved dish of 2024? The goal is to surpass the 7,000 plates of trofie with pesto served last year.

Fundraising Seventy volunteers will be involved in promoting support for the Meeting, with 11 fixed and 2 mobile stations, while 10,000 lottery tickets have been printed, which are always in high demand from the Meeting's audience.

Volunteers Once again this year, there will be 3,000 volunteers at the Meeting, 500 during the pre-meeting and 2,500 during the event, 60 percent of whom are under 30 years old. There are 110 different tasks that volunteers will perform, from parking management to room supervision, communication to exhibition guides, catering, and even very specific tasks like the 13 “coin handlers” responsible for supplying change to the 142 cash registers at the Meeting.

Technology and Communication This year, there will be 94 volunteer audio and video technicians (up from 81 last year) divided into 9 operational sectors. They will manage 150 video streams in 7 languages for a total of 200 hours of live streaming. Fourteen cameras will be used in the 4 main rooms and 7 in the three arenas, as since 2020 most of the Meeting's conference rooms have also been designed as television studios with direction and various cameramen. Over 260 – a constantly updated number – external outlets will rebroadcast the Meeting's live video streams on their websites, more than double the 129 of 2023. The Meeting website, www.meetingrimini.org, will allow for reservations for nearly all of the 400 events available: participation in conferences, exhibition visits, entrance to exhibitions and workshops in the Children’s Village, and sporting events.

Images It is estimated that the Meeting's 35 volunteer photographers will take over 300,000 photos during the event, 20,000 of which will be uploaded to Flickr's databases and public folders available to journalists.

Companies The number of partner companies for the 2024 Meeting has grown, reaching 180 this year. The main partners include Intesa Sanpaolo and Cattolica Generali, official partners like Automobile Club d’Italia, Autostrade per l’Italia, Confagricoltura, Eni, Hines, Invitalia, isybank, Engineering, Ferrovie dello Stato Italiane, Fondazione Ania, Enel, Montello, the official green carrier Trenitalia, the safety partner Veronese, the mobility partner Reggini, and the communication partner Comin&Partners.

Institutions Institutional attention is also high: the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and International Cooperation will manage an area dedicated to the theme “There is an Italy that cooperates,” while the in-depth work the Meeting has been doing for years on infrastructure, transportation, urban renewal, and environmental issues will materialize in physical spaces, with the participation of the Ministry of Infrastructure and the Ministry of the Environment and Energy Security. Also present at the Fair with their own spaces will be the Ministry of Cultural Heritage, the Ministry of Education and Merit, and the Ministry of Agriculture, Food Sovereignty, and Forests. The presence of Italian Regions is also significant; 11 have chosen the Meeting this year to promote their institutional activities, particularly in tourism, food and wine, the environment, and energy.