12 February 2026
There is a moment, right after the Meeting ends, when the pavilions become empty again. That’s where everything starts over. Not as a break, but as a beginning. It’s the time when we return to thinking, planning, imagining.
Along this Road toward the next edition, we meet two people who—each in their own way, yet deeply intertwined—shape the Meeting’s space: Stefano Ferri, an engineer and Head of Set-Ups, and Martina Valcamonica, an architect and General Designer.
For both of them, the work begins long before the construction site opens. From the very first months, they go back to studying the surfaces, thinking through the masterplan, and deciding where exhibitions, plazas, conference rooms, and work areas will be placed. It’s a process made of technical meetings, continuous comparisons, and ongoing dialogue with suppliers, graphic designers, installers, and volunteers. Patient work, carried out over months.
As Stefano says, “The Meeting begins when the pavilions are still empty: that’s where it takes shape, step by step, together with the volunteers.”
The initial vision gradually becomes a real space: bright and welcoming. A space designed for hundreds of thousands of people, while taking into account a thousand different needs and pressures. Martina captures it well when she explains, “My job is to turn an idea into a space that welcomes, surprises, and helps people meet.”
The Road to the Meeting runs through this as well: a journey that carries on all the way to the opening of the pavilions—and beyond—when the Meeting finally becomes an experience open to everyone.
Keep following us and become a protagonist in the construction of the 2026 Meeting!
