From 2nd – 5th November, I attended SiGMA Europe at Fiera Roma along with an estimated 30,000 other delegates from all over the world. This was the first year in Rome for SiGMA; the flagship European conference was previously held in Malta but became so successful over the years that it outgrew the island. And it was my first time personally at SiGMA (though not FTD’s first time) AND the first time I’ve ever visited Rome.
As a first time visitor to the Eternal City, I tried to maximise my conference networking by meeting people at various landmarks around Rome in the evening. Well… that was my plan, as I assumed the train transport system and taxis would be able to get me to where I wanted to go, but this was not the case. The trains were always on time according to the digital arrival boards, but you just didn’t know where they were going. It was quite chaotic, which made for some stressful evenings out and some very expensive taxis. But, once we all found each other, we did have some great networking evenings, where I got to see the Colosseum, Trevi Fountain and also a quick trip to the Vatican.
The conference was huge and unfortunately the train station was situated at the BACK of the conference venue, which meant we all had a 2-3km walk to actually get to the conference halls, walking through lots of empty and eerie halls to get to our destination. Hopefully this is something that will be addressed for next year.
We found the weather in Rome at this time of year quite bizarre. During the day the temperature was around 25 degrees whilst walking the long journey into the conference, but when leaving, the temperature would plummet to just 5 degrees, meaning most of us had to carry a coat around all day as lockers seem to be somewhat unavailable. Again, hopefully this is something that will be addressed for next year (the lockers, not the weather as you can’t really hold the organisers responsible for that).
The conference itself (once you’ve sat down, had a coffee and recovered from the long walk in) was over 6 large halls, with temporary pop-up marquees between each hall to allow for more stands. On paper, the layout looked very logical and simple to navigate, but in reality, I am yet to speak someone that wasn’t late for a meeting after getting lost around the conference maze, myself included.
Business wise, SiGMA Europe was a huge success for FTD, with a great mix of meeting with existing UK partners, plus meeting a lot of new partners from different geos as we start to branch out into America with sweepstake affiliation ,and also meeting more of our partners for our Canadian site Luckyhat. If you didn’t get to meet us this time round – next stop is iGB Affiliate Barcelona in January 2026!
