11 Feb SPOTLIGHT: Futurecom changes hands – Brazil, Regional
Latin America’s main information and telecom event, Futurecom, has changed hands.
After 16 editions, the conference was sold by the Veiga family, who created and organized it through the Provisuale events company, to UK’s Informa Telecom & Media group.
Contacted by BNamericas, Informa confirmed that the deal closed on the eve of Futurecom 2014. The company did not disclose a value for the transaction.
Informa is known for a series of conferences on ICT held around the world, including the LTE Latin America Forum, and events focused on MVNOs, cloud computing and TV.
Futurecom’s former owners will remain involved in the event’s organization during a transition period involving the next two editions.
The news that the Brazilian event was sold to a foreign group is highly symbolic, as it marks the end of an era for the conference, as well as suggesting that consolidation might be around the corner not only for the country’s telecom sector, but also for its events industry.
Futurecom arose in 1991 from Semint, the first telecom event created by engineer Laudálio Veiga Filho, who at the time worked for the now defunct Paraná state telco Telepar.
The first official Futurecom conference, however, took place in 1999. Held in Santa Catarina state capital Florianópolis, the event brought together 3,000 participants.
After ten years being held in Santa Catarina, the conference was moved to São Paulo until 2011.
The event went to Rio de Janeiro in 2012-13, returning to São Paulo last year.
Last year’s edition, held in October, gathered 14,500 unique visitors, 4,500 congress delegates, 302 speakers and 350 exhibitors.
Although the event has grown in size and scope, it cannot compare to Barcelona’s Mobile World Congress (MWC), currently the world’s most important telecom conference. Last year’s MWC featured 85,000 attendees and over 1,800 exhibitors, according to is organizers.
Futurecom 2015 is scheduled for October 26-29 in São Paulo.