The biennial fair closed its doors having welcomed three times as many foreign visitors. Increased number of attendees from the worlds of architecture and interior design and boosted its promotion of building with wood.
Maderalia Special Mentions for most innovative products and best branding announced
In an unbeatable end to its 40th anniversary, FIMMA + Maderalia closed its doors on a very special edition of the fair, which may prove to be a milestone in the story of Spain’s leading biennial fair for materials, technology, machinery and solutions for the wood industry. Not just because this 40th anniversary edition fully consolidated the standing of the event but also because it marked the beginning of a new phase in which the development of international business, commitment to the specifier community and the development of wood as a material for use in architecture and construction will inform how the fair evolves.
FIMMA + Maderalia returns in 2026. Beyond the figures – estimated to have hit 35,000 visitors – there was total satisfaction with the high quality and professional profile of the visitors who attended this latest edition. “We are very happy with how the fair played out. Visitors were coming to our stand with real projects for setting up production lines”, claimed FIMMA Organising Committee chairman and business owner Santiago Riera. More specifically, it was the machinery and technology section of the show that evidenced the most growth this year, doubling the space it occupied. “All the leading and most significant brands from around the world were here, and visitors appreciated that”, Riera added.
As for Maderalia, Organising Committee chairman Alejandro Bermejo highlighted “FIMMA + Maderalia’s power to attract industry professionals to visit, signalling a bright future for a fair that everyone in our field needs”. Bermejo, who is also president of independent industry trade association FEVAMA, underscored “the role the fair plays in promoting the culture of wood so that society perceives it as a material not just for the future but a material to be deployed now”.
On that particular subject Alejandro Roda, who headed up the biennial for the first time this year, pointed out that “three of our key objectives were fulfilled in spades. On the one hand we had triple the number of international visitors, not just thanks to IVACE + I Internacional and ICEX’s trade missions, but also the number of international professionals who visited on their own account. Especially”, he emphasized, “from Morocco, which was the main source of foreign visitors and is commissioning projects to do with the World Cup”.
Roda also signalled that one key element was “the emergence of a new profile of visitor, specifiers – be it in architecture, contracts, construction or interior design – who were not aware of the fair and have discovered a whole universe of potential products for their projects. Significantly more of these people visited this year”. And, lastly, FIMMA + Maderalia’s director highlighted how “wood for use in construction” is now firmly established “as one of the cornerstones of the fair’s content”.
