RAI Amsterdam - Experts & Thought Leaders

During RAI Amsterdam's Donation Room Program, donations from exhibitors are collected for affiliated community initiatives in the area. Two Donation Rooms took place in one day.  The first donation program took place during the BioProcess International Europe, the largest bioprocessing event to learn how to bring biological products, and cell, and gene therapies to commercial success faster.  Plastics Recycling Show Europe After collecting many donations during this event, volunteers were able to move straight on to the next event, the Plastics Recycling Show Europe.  Wonderful proceeds in donations were raised and this was mainly thanks to special guests This event focused on plastic recycling in Europe and the biggest names in recycled materials, recycling machines, and recycling services were on display with the latest innovations in the industry. At both events, wonderful proceeds in donations were raised and this was mainly thanks to special guests. A special Donation Team This time the donation team was composed slightly differently than usual. As many as four students from Wartburg College in Waverly, in the United States of America (USA), had volunteered. The group of students was traveling together with two teachers from Wartburg College for a sustainability class and visited companies to learn more about their CSR activities, among other things. For this reason, they were also willing to participate in one of these activities and came to help with the donation room program. the best donation for charity All the students and the two teachers from Wartburg College are thanked immensely for their positive energy and enthusiasm! The students competed against each other in groups of two to raise the best donation for charity. The results? The best student team won a beautiful miniature bicycle as a memento of Amsterdam Chargers, sleeping bags, toys, soft drinks, snacks, and much more! The best student team won a beautiful miniature bicycle as a memento of Amsterdam, and the other students were given a bicycle keychain as a consolation prize. A successful day with great proceeds in donations for community initiatives! In the coming weeks, all donations will find a new destination at affiliated community initiatives. Donation Room RAI Amsterdam The Donation Room program is an RAI initiative that is organized at various events in the RAI to prevent waste and help local initiatives find useful products. The next donation programs will take place at the Private Label Manufacturers Association (PLMA) and Money20/20.

RAI Amsterdam has upgraded its WI-FI 6 network to support WBA OpenRoaming, a service that enables exhibitors, attendees, and event staff to seamlessly connect to a secure and high-quality network. WBA OpenRoaming is available at over one million hotspots worldwide and has become the global standard that Wi-Fi network owners, service providers, and others are adding to free users from the need to constantly re-register or re-enter log-in credentials while maintaining enterprise-grade security. Deployed Wi-Fi For conferences, trade shows, and other events, high-performance Wi-Fi has become as critical" With OpenRoaming, people only have to log in once and then have their device automatically connect every time they return to an OpenRoaming-enabled hotspot. The RAI is one of the many convention centers, arenas, and stadiums that have deployed Wi-Fi throughout their venues. Bret Baas, Manager IT of RAI Amsterdam, said: “For conferences, trade shows, and other events, high-performance Wi-Fi has become as critical as electricity. That’s why we’re continually investing to make our Wi-Fi network among the best in the world."

On 30 March 2023, RAI Amsterdam took home the prestigious prize for Best International Venue at the Exhibitions News Awards ceremony held in the ExCeL London center. Widely regarded as 'The Oscars' of the global trade show sector, the Exhibition News Awards are conferred annually on businesses that make outstanding contributions to the industry. Best International Venue RAI Amsterdam had been shortlisted in the ‘Best International Venue’ category where it faced stiff competition from nominees, such as the Abu Dhabi National Exhibition Centre, Bruges Meeting & Convention Centre (BMCC), the Panama Convention Centre, and the Hong Kong Convention and Exhibition Centre. Its submission for the award included the successful resumption of activities and events in the spring of 2022 following the lifting of Covid restrictions and the RAI’s efforts to support Ukrainian refugees in partnership with Amsterdam city council. Challenge and privilege Our goal is always to support exhibition and conference organizers in making their event a success" “Winning this major prize is a wonderful recognition that our efforts have been noticed and are paying off,” says RAI Amsterdam COO - Maurits van der Sluis, adding “Our goal is always to support exhibition and conference organizers in making their event a success and a meaningful experience for exhibitors and visitors alike." Maurits van der Sluis continues, "We are honored to have won this award after almost two years of lockdown when RAI Amsterdam became the largest COVID-19 vaccination site in the Netherlands. It has been a challenge and a privilege to reopen our convention center for events in 2022 completely." Annual home base Maurits van der Sluis stated, “Resuming all our business activities at full capacity enabled us to contribute to and become the annual home base again for trade exhibitions like IBC, Money2020, and PLMA’s World Private Label. We also welcome major scientific congresses to Amsterdam such as the European Society of Cardiology (ESC) and the Dutch Trauma Days medical conference. Being named Best International Venue is a tribute to all who have worked so hard to get the RAI back in business.” RAI Amsterdam welcomes the world The flexible configuration at RAI Amsterdam makes it possible to host every kind of event. Trade shows like the international B2B Offshore Energy exhibition and European Women in Tech are interspersed with smaller events, theatre, and other shows such as the PAN art fair, the Masters Expo lifestyle event, the Winter Paradise festival, and the Kingsland dance event on Kings Day. A further remarkable sign of the return of dynamic economic activities in 2022 is the fact that the RAI Hotel Services department booked some five million euros of accommodation in the nhow Amsterdam RAI hotel located next to the convention center. Exhibition News Exhibition News is one of the pioneering trade magazines for the exhibition, conference, and events industry. The category ‘Best International Venue’ was open to all large international exhibition venues with 10,000 sqm or more floor space that attracts major international events.  In addition to winning the Best International Venue award, it is noteworthy that we were also nominated for Best Company Culture.