The city of Longarone with its Exhibition Centre is located in the Veneto region, in the province of Belluno, at the foot of the Dolomites mountains, a UNESCO World Heritage Site. Its enviable location makes it the ideal trade-fair venue, at a convenient distance from the vibrant international tourism and business areas of Cortina, Venice and Verona.
Since the 1950s, political and economic representatives of the Belluno area have identified the town of Longarone as the appropriate venue for supporting and promoting the Belluno province’s ice cream sector companies in the nearby Cadore and Zoldo valleys. These companies had the undisputed merit of developing and diffusing the value of making artisan gelato worldwide, and then of organising the first edition of Longarone’s “Gelato Exhibition” back in 1959. It proved an immediate success, with large numbers of private and business visitors coming from all parts of north-eastern Italy and from Austria and Germany.
The disaster of the Vajont dam in 1963 was one of Italy’s most catastrophic events ever. The tragedy highlighted the human value of a population that quickly found the courage and energy to react and rebuild a new future for themselves.
The success of the International Gelato Exhibition led Longarone Fiere Dolomiti to enact a development programme in recent years. Currently it holds 12 expos a year, exploiting a covered and well-equipped exhibition space of over 14,500 square metres, with an additional 5,000 sq.m outdoor area with a large adjacent parking facility.
Specific mountain-related trade fairs are held here such as the furniture show Arredamont, the mountain agriculture exhibition Agrimont, the building trade fair Ri-Costruire, and the hunting and
fishing show Caccia, Pesca e Natura, where alpine hunting and fishing reserves are presented. Then there is EXPO Dolomiti with Dolomiti Show and the Mountain Tourism and Sports Fair, the Forestry Fair and Festival, Arte in Fiera Dolomiti, Reptiles Day and the International Cat Show.
The events organised by Longarone Fiere amount to over 40 opening days of the exhibition halls per year, with the participation of over 1,500 companies and almost 200,000 visitors from Italy and abroad.
