FITUR is the largest tourism fair in the world. Every January, more than 250,000 people pass through IFEMA Madrid over five days.
FITUR Inside: What a Fair of This Caliber Demands
Viewed from the outside, FITUR is a tourism fair. On the inside, however, it's a temporary city with the technical needs of a congress or a sporting event. The stands need internet. The event rooms need streaming. Each tourism board wants to broadcast their events live. And in turn, accredited media outlets need to send material to their newsrooms in real time.
The volume is enormous. In fact, the 2024 edition alone generated over 37,000 news articles in media outlets worldwide. This means that for five days, thousands of journalists are creating content live from the exhibition halls. Reports for television, live feeds for news programs, interviews for radio, and photos for digital press. In short, all that activity depends on the network.
The Andalusia Pavilion: Six Years as Technical Partner
Andalucía is, edition after edition, one of FITUR's star pavilions. Its stand usually wins awards for design and staging. However, behind every screen, every event, and every streaming broadcast, there is a network that enbex designs, assembles, and operates.
The Andalusia pavilion isn't just a stand with a counter and brochures. It's a complex space that integrates exhibition areas, rooms for destination presentations, meeting areas for professionals, and spaces dedicated to the press. Everything needs a network. And not just any network: a network sized to ensure everything works simultaneously without one service interfering with another.
Patronages and delegations: every province connected
Within the Andalusia pavilion, each province has its own representation through its tourism board. Almería, Cádiz, Córdoba, Granada, Huelva, Jaén, Málaga, and Seville. Each with its own space, screens, presentations, and specific connectivity needs.
Additionally, the Ministry of Tourism of the Junta de Andalucía coordinates official events that require live streaming, recording, and broadcast. For their part, municipalities present their destinations. Andalusian tourism companies also provide demos of their products, and sector associations organize round tables. Everything converges in the same pavilion, at the same time, for five days.
For enbex, this means provisioning individualized connectivity for each booth. WiFi network segmented by zones. Wired outlets for points that need guaranteed stability. And the ability to manage requests that arise during the fair, because in an event of this magnitude, unforeseen needs always emerge.
Wiring: the foundation of everything
FEATURE requires a significant amount of cabling. Wired network jacks provide connections to the equipment streaming, digital signage systems, press stations, and dedicated connections in each area of the pavilion. This also includes signal encoding equipment that captures presentations and sends them to live streaming platforms.
The laying is done on the structure of the pavilion IFEMA, in coordination with the booth assembly team. First, the cables are run before the panels, screens, and design elements are installed. Once the booth is closed, it is very difficult to access a cable tray to repair a cable. For this reason, the wiring is done right the first time, each outlet is tested, and each connection is labeled.
The data trunk lines connecting the various areas of the press center are oversized to allow for extra capacity. A press center like the one in Andalusia generates a considerable amount of traffic when all the delegations are broadcasting, all the screens are displaying content, and all the journalists are sending material at the same time.
WiFi: coverage throughout the entire hall
The Wi-Fi network covers the entire space. Not only the public areas, but also the internal workspaces, boardrooms, and press areas. Each section has its own VLAN with its access policies and allocated bandwidth.
At a trade show like FEATURE, the number of points Wi-Fi Per square meter, it's very high. For example, tourism professionals carry laptops and mobile phones. In turn, journalists lug various equipment. And the staff at the stands work with tablets and presentation systems. Everyone fights for radio spectrum in a closed exhibition hall with metal structures that create bounces and interference.
RF planning must be precise. Power levels must be adjusted to prevent APs from interfering with each other. Channels must be assigned to minimize in-band interference. Band steering must be configured to direct compatible devices to the 5 GHz band, leaving the 2.4 GHz band for devices that do not support anything else.
Streaming and signal encoding: every live event
An essential part of the work in FEATURE is the production and encoding of broadcasts in streaming. The pavilion's halls host destination presentations, press conferences, panel discussions, and workshops. Many of these events are broadcast live via the tourism boards' digital platforms or the event's own Government of Andalusia.
The signal is encoded using professional equipment. The camera captures the event. The encoder compresses the signal in real time and sends it to the streaming server over the network. The remote viewer receives it on their screen with only a few seconds of delay.
It sounds simple, but every link in that chain has to work properly. If the encoder loses connection for three seconds, the stream cuts out. When the upload bandwidth is insufficient, the image becomes pixelated. And if latency gets too high, the audio and video lose synchronization. That’s why all of this can be prevented with a well-designed network and continuous monitoring during every broadcast.
During peak times at the fair, it is common for several rooms to be broadcasting streaming at the same time. This increases the demand for upload bandwidth and requires the network segmentation to function properly so that a stream Don't take resources from another.
Internet redundancy: The fair cannot be without a network
FEATURE hard five days. During the first three days of the trade show, commercial transactions, business meetings, and institutional presentations all depend on internet connectivity. An internet outage in a pavilion during a press conference with international media is no minor inconvenience. It is a public relations issue for the autonomous community and for the trade show.
That is why, Internet access for an event A system of this scale is set up with a dual-line configuration. It includes multiple access points and load balancing between them, with automatic failover if one goes down. This ensures that no single failure can leave the facility without service.
In addition, the entire structure is monitored in real time during the fair. The team at enbex It monitors the status of each link, traffic by region, latency, and quality of service. As soon as performance starts to decline, action is taken before the user even notices.
Press, radio, and television: connectivity for the media
With more than 6,800 journalists credited in FEATURE, The media presence is massive. National and international television networks are doing live feeds from the pavilions for their news programs. Radio stations are broadcasting full shows from the stands. Digital press journalists are sending reports, interviews, and heavy audiovisual material to their newsrooms.
Serving these media requires high-level links. For example, a TV crew doing a live broadcast needs a stable link with low latency and guaranteed upload. Similarly, a radio station broadcasting for hours needs an uninterrupted connection. A news agency photographer sending hundreds of photos also needs real upload speed, not what's stated in the contract.
enbex Enable dedicated connections for media operating within the pavilion. Wired when live demands it. Wi-Fi with priority when mobility is necessary. The goal is for no vehicle to have problems doing its job.
Beyond Andalusia: Service to Other Exhibitors
Although the Andalusia pavilion is the main project of enbex en FEATURE, The experience accumulated over six editions has led other exhibitors to also request our services. Other autonomous communities, companies in the tourism sector, and international organizations that need a technical partner with knowledge of the environment IFEMA and demonstrated capability in this type of deployment.
Each new stand is a different challenge. The needs vary: from a simple connection Wi-Fi for a counter to a full deployment with streaming, structured cabling and Technical support throughout the entire fair. The advantage of knowing IFEMA After six years, assembly times are optimized, venue infrastructure providers are known, and processes are established.
Six years of continuity: what it brings to know the fair from the inside
FEATURE It repeats every January. The calendar is fixed. But each edition is different. The stands change their design. The halls are rearranged. The foundations ask for new services. The technology of streaming evolves. And the number of shows broadcast live grows year after year.
After six editions, enbex know the rhythm of FEATURE. Knows when traffic peaks arrive. Knows the areas of the pavilion where coverage Wi-Fi it is more complicated because of the metal structures. It has identified the points within the enclosure where the fiber IFEMA It has limitations. And it has learned to anticipate the requests that always arrive on the first day of the fair, when everyone discovers they need «one more little thing.».
This accumulated knowledge has a value that cannot be improvised. Each edition starts from a more solid foundation than the previous one. Assemblies are faster. Known problems already have solutions prepared. And the ability to react to the unforeseen improves every year.
Technical specifications
Event: FITUR — International Tourism Fair. IFEMA Madrid.
Collaboration More than 6 consecutive editions as a technical partner.
Main Pavilion: Andalusia, with connectivity for the Board of Andalusia and the tourism boards of the eight provinces.
Connectivity Zoned WiFi segmentation and structured cabling for streaming, digital signage, press, and internal services. Redundant internet with load balancing and automatic failover.
Streaming Professional live signal encoding from presentation rooms, plenaries, and workshops. Simultaneous broadcasts in multiple rooms.
Media: Dedicated connections for television channels, radio stations, and accredited digital press.
Other exhibitors Service to additional stands from other autonomous communities, tourism companies, and international delegations.
Result: Six consecutive uninterrupted editions of service in connectivity, streaming, and media support.
Your booth at FEATURE or at any fair IFEMA Do you need professional connectivity? Contact enbex