The merger of the three major video game fairs in Catalonia has been a success, according to its spokesperson, Tina Font: “We have exceeded all the organization's expectations.” This first edition, which debuted at the Fira de Barcelona's Montjuïc venue, has closed its doors with an influx of more than 21,000 people. Regarding the industry, the professional area accommodated a total of 1,590 business meetings, which were also attended by more than 30 international publishers and investors. “The success of the fair comes when a studio manages to close a contract or find funding, or when a professional finds the job of their dreams,” she pointed out. Finally, the participation of more than 2,000 students and teachers during Friday's session, which was more oriented towards training and employment, stands out.

The video game sector in Catalonia has been demonstrating extraordinary vitality for years, but it lacked a great, unified, and ambitious showcase at the level of its industrial and creative weight. The SAGA Barcelona Game Fest wants to fill this void and is born from the strategic merger of the three reference events in the territory: the IndieDevDay (rebranded as BCN Game Fest and promoted by the ICOA), which provides the professional muscle and the developer community; the SAGA, Gaming Salon (organized by Plataforma per la Llengua), which focuses on linguistic normalization within the sector, and the cultural association RetroBarcelona, which acts as the protector and disseminator of the history and heritage of video games.

More than 200 boats, 170 direct exhibitors and more than 300 brands will fill the Moll de la Fusta and Marina Port Vell in Barcelona for the 63rd edition of the Barcelona International Boat Show. Organized by Fira de Barcelona with the collaboration of the National Association of Nautical Companies (ANEN), the show will present a wide selection of boats from major brands of all lengths, in addition to the largest displays of catamarans in the European nautical trade fair calendar.

From October 9th to 11th, pavilion 1 of Fira Barcelona Montjuïc will turn the SAGA Barcelona Game Fest into a meeting point for video game lovers and professionals. Heir to the IndieDevDay and Retrobarcelona, the event is a gathering for the industry, creators, players, and video game culture, with a specific commitment to video games in Catalan and a professional dimension designed to connect the Catalan sector with the international ecosystem.

Catalonia is playing a strong hand. In little more than a decade, video games have gone from being a peripheral activity to becoming a cultural industry with international projection. Around it, an ecosystem has been woven that combines independent studios and multinationals, talent trained in universities, investment, incubators, events, and public policies. But there are also imbalances and a global context of uncertainty, marked by layoffs, studio closures, business concentration, and the emergence of generative artificial intelligence. The challenge is to consolidate the sector without losing talent and projects.

The video game not only shows a culture, but also allows you to immerse yourself in it: the player interacts with it, makes decisions, and uses the rules of the world that is proposed to them.

Diversity in video games is not limited to counting how many people from underrepresented groups work in a studio. It also involves asking which characters appear, which experiences are considered in the design, who is left out due to an accessibility barrier, and what behavior communities allow. Making an industry more diverse is not just about incorporating more profiles, but about rethinking games, gaming spaces, and rules of coexistence.

In the same way that the technologies involved in video games are diverse, we can expect that there will not be a single great technological leap that transforms the medium overnight. The very history of interactive electronic entertainment confirms that the great advances it has experienced have occurred through many simultaneous transformations: tools that allow creating faster, devices that modify the way of playing, loading or transition screens that disappear to give way to more immediate and immersive experiences, and platforms that make the device from which a game is executed less important. We also know that not everything we are promised the future will bring ends up arriving or having an impact that is not ephemeral, but it is a fact that technology changes how video games are made, how we play them, and also the environmental cost of producing them.

A video game can serve to unwind and let off steam... but it can also have purposes beyond the purely playful. When the main goal of a game goes beyond entertainment, we enter the territory of serious games, the serious games.

To nourish an entire industrial sector, professionals of all kinds are needed: programmers, artists, animators, designers, producers, sound and quality assurance specialists, marketing…

Between having a good idea and managing to turn it into a video game there is an abyss. And between publishing it and ensuring the studio can continue working, even more so. Catalonia has a network of incubators, accelerators, universities, and aid programs that attempts to reduce this gap, as well as a professional community that allows studios to look for partners, publishers and investors. But money continues to be one of the major bottlenecks.

The international Spanish-language book business will look towards Barcelona once again for Liber 2026. The fair, which will be held from September 29th to October 1st at the Gran Via venue, will open new commercial opportunities in emerging markets and will focus on boosting the growth of publishing rights sales and sector debate.

The tourism fair B-Travel, the supermarket chain Ametller Origen, and the health sector knowledge business association Catalonia.health have announced changes to their leadership this week, which has also been marked by new appointments in the transport and real estate sectors. Furthermore, Anthropic, one of the giants of artificial intelligence (AI), has landed in the Spanish market with the appointment of a new head in the country, while in the United States, billionaire Warren Buffett has announced that he is leaving the chairmanship of the conglomerate Berkshire Hathaway to his son Howard Buffett.

The first edition of Battery Energy Storage Tech Europe will be held on September 8 and 9, 2026, at the Gran Via venue of Fira de Barcelona. The trade fair will bring together companies, institutions, associations, and experts in the field of energy storage at a time of growth in the sector, which is advancing as a key infrastructure for the energy transition, the electrification of the economy, and European industrial development.

Under the slogan "Where padel meets business", Padel World Summit (PWS) returns to Barcelona with 56% international exhibitors. Organized by Fira de Barcelona and the International Padel Cluster, it consolidates itself as the major platform for this sport's industry on an international level. With 140 exhibiting companies from France, Italy, the United Kingdom, Belgium, Finland, Sweden, and China as the countries with the most commercial representation, PWS becomes the most representative event of the padel ecosystem.

The international congress of seafood companies and products, Seafood Global, will open a new edition on April 21 with similar prospects to last year's. The organizers of the meeting do not foresee that the war in the Middle East will affect attendance at the meeting and estimate that the event will have an impact on the city's economy of around 161 million euros.

The Alimentaria and Hostelco joint congress, dedicated to the agri-food industry, hospitality, and catering, opened its doors this Monday at the Fira de Barcelona, ​​on the very day that Brussels announced the provisional entry into force of the free trade agreement between the European Union and Mercosur, a treaty that could change the food sector in the years to come. The congress, which takes place every two years, expects around 110,000 attendees, according to organizers last week. It would surpass both the Mobile World Congress and Integrated Systems Europe in visitors. (ISE), currently the two trade fairs with the highest visitor numbers held in Barcelona. However, unlike these two congresses, where the majority of attendees come from abroad, Alimentaria has a majority of visitors (approximately three out of four) from within Spain.

This Monday, March 23, and running until March 26, 2026, the Gran Via venue of Fira de Barcelona will host an edition marked by the 50th anniversary of Alimentaria, created in 1976 as the first major professional trade fair in Spain dedicated exclusively to the food industry. Fifty years later, the event, together with Hostelco, will bring together its offerings in 100,000 m² spread across seven pavilions, with 3,300 participating companies. Alimentaria+Hostelco is taking a leap forward in internationalization this year. With more than 1,200 companies from 70 countries, it has broken its record, increasing the number of companies from outside Spain by 30% and the space they occupy by 40% compared to the last edition, now representing 36% of the total. Europe (with Poland as Country of Honor), Latin America, and North America have a strong business presence, reinforcing the trade fair's strategic importance as a meeting point for the global food industry.

The Alimentaria and Hostelco trade fair for the agri-food, restaurant, and hospitality industries will increase the number of exhibitors this year compared to the last edition and expects to reach 110,000 visitors, organizers announced on Thursday. With this figure, the event would surpass the total number of visitors to the Mobile World Congress (MWC) and ISE, the two most attended events held this year at Fira de Barcelona. The congress, which celebrates its 50th anniversary this year, will be held next week at the Gran Via venue of Fira de Barcelona, ​​in Hospitalet de Llobregat. In total, it will occupy seven pavilions with an area of ​​100,000 square meters. Organizers have highlighted the international nature of the event. "It will be by far the most international Alimentaria in history," declared Antoni Llorens, president of the trade fair, at the press conference presenting the congress this Thursday. "A congress comes of age when an international visitor comes to visit an international exhibitor, because borders are transcended," added Pere Taberner, president of Hostelco. In total, some 3,300 companies will participate in the 2026 edition, 1,200 of which are from abroad. Thus, the number of exhibitors from outside Spain represents a 30 percent increase compared to the previous edition, although the increase in exhibition space occupied by international companies will be 40 percent.