I amsterdam - Conventions & Trade Fairs

All in One
The Amsterdam Area offers myriad options for tailor-made conference and events solutions, and the added incentive of the compact historic centre with its diversity of culture and nightlife for relaxation, or open nature and the coast within easy reach. And accessibility is second to none.

RAI Exhibition & Congress Center
The region’s most important conference and trade fair venue is the Amsterdam RAI Exhibition and Congress Center. It has its own railway station, less than 10 minutes from Schiphol Airport, and only 15 minutes from the city centre by public transport. The Amsterdam RAI is committed to inspiring the most fundamental form of communication: direct personal contact. The complex has 11 interconnected exhibition halls (74,280 square metres), 22 flexible conference spaces, an auditorium for up to 1,750 people that is suitable for sermons as well as for opera, seven restaurants, and numerous multi-purpose lounges for exhibitions and poster sessions. There is also plenty of hotel accommodation in and around Amsterdam, including 3,500 beds within walking distance and 17,500 within easy reach.

The Amsterdam RAI complex hosts almost 500 trade fairs, professional congresses, meetings and smaller functions each year, attracting almost 2 million visitors. The biggest professional event is the International Broadcasting Convention (IBC) with 1,000 exhibitors and more than 40,000 visitors. Consumer events such as the HISWA boat show and the AutoRAI car show attract hundreds of thousands from the Netherlands and abroad.

Diverse Array of Venues
There are smaller but no less important venues throughout the Amsterdam Area. The conference and events bureaus of the University of Amsterdam (UvA) and the Vrije Universiteit (VU) organise international academic and scientific symposiums and congresses. Considered a 20th-century architectural milestone, the Beurs van Berlage (Berlage’s Stock Exchange) dates from 1903. It has been converted into two concert halls and a flexible conference and exhibition venue. The Passenger Terminal Amsterdam, port of call for more than 100 ocean liners each year, is also a small-scale conference venue, a modern and transparent wave of a building. A recent addition is the massive INIT complex, a flexible and creative business centre with about 45,000 square metres of glazed-over space that also provides various possibilities for business meetings and exhibitions, with easy access from the ring road and Amsterdam city centre. Angel Amsterdam offers a total of 2,000 square metres of high-class space for events, and De Meervaart, a theatre, conference and meeting centre completed in 1999, can host 800 people seated in the Red Room, 300 seated in the Blue Room, and has a suite of 10 small meeting rooms, all with the latest technical and audiovisual facilities.

Amsterdam Region
In the wider Amsterdam Area, the state-of-the-art Amstelveen Congrescentrum stands in this dynamic business area’s modern heart. There are numerous conference hotels and business facilities throughout the region, for example at the World Trade Center Schiphol, offering flexible options in the vicinity of Amsterdam Airport Schiphol. The Amsterdam Tourism and Convention Board offers advice on appropriate venues and other services.