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CineEurope Makes The Move To Barcelona In 2012

October 14, 2011

Having changed its name from Cinema Expo to CineEurope this year upon teaming up with the International Union of Cinemas (UNIC), now another change is in store for Europe’s largest motion picture exhibitor trade show; its location.

After being held at the Rai in Amsterdam for the past 15 years, the conference is being packed up and moved to Barcelona for the 2012 event. This was a move that had been rumored as far back as 2009, when UNIC decided to hold their own trade show in Brussels a week before Cinema Expo. Rather than compete head-to-head with a larger trade show, UNIC decided to fold the European Cinema Summit into Cinema Expo in 2011 and rebrand it as CineEurope. A change-of-venue could help in reposition the show in attendees’ minds.

In a press release statement announcing the move, Robert Sunshine, the Managing Director of CineEurope (not to mention ShowEast and CineAsia), said:

“The move to Barcelona represents CineEurope’s dedication to better serving the European cinema exhibition and distribution communities. CineEurope management and UNIC consulted with constituents and the overwhelming feedback received was that a move to Spain would be a beneficial change”.

Underscoring the new venture as a combined effort, Ad Westrate, the President of UNIC, also provided a press release quote

‘’I am sure I speak for all UNIC colleagues in welcoming CineEurope’s move to Barcelona and our continuing partnership with Bob Sunshine and his team. Our members will now have even more reasons to support the convention in its new host city.”

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Cinema Expo Thoughts: David Hancock of Screen Digest

By J. Sperling Reich

July 20, 2010

The final entry in our series of posts presenting the comments of industry participants on last month’s Cinema Expo provides us with some valuable information.

David Hancock’s name will sound familiar to anyone having worked in motion picture exhibition or digital cinema over the past decade. He is the head of film and cinema at Screen Digest where he works as a senior analyst publishing numerous research reports on the industry.

Hancock moderated a panel discussion at Cinema Expo which reviewed the progress of digital cinema rollouts in Europe. Here are his impressions on last month’s conference:

David Hancock of Screen Digest

This was a very good Cine Expo. Thanks in great part to the efforts of Phil Clapp, the Chief Executive of UK Cinema Exhibitor Association, and Ad Weststrate, President of UNIC, who brought a strong European flavour to the seminar programming, there was much to be learned in both these formal events, as well as the more informal surroundings of the bars.

For me, there were two things that stood out at this year’s Cine Expo. The first was alternative content, which is now clearly on the map and was on most people’s lips. From almost a pariah subject a few years back, there is now strong interest from exhibitors in tracking down new content. The call for content is matched by the need for a central information point where exhibitors can view what is out there. Some exhibitors and content providers have been working in this area for many years, and it is good to finally see the rest of the market catch up with them. Their skills and experience will be in demand in the next few years. There were two panels on this, one on Monday and one on Thursday.

The second is that digital cinema is finally a mainstream movement. Left and right, people were taking deals, with integrators, projector companies, banks etc. In fact, there appears to be a projector shortage now and people are on waiting lists. It is rather strange, having spent so long talking about the future is coming, to talk about this in the present tense. It is even weirder that we are talking about projector shortages when in the past, the opposite was the case.

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