Ifema (short for ''Institución Ferial de Madrid; "''Fair Institution of Madrid") is an entity charged with the organisation of fairs, halls and congresses in their facilities in

Madrid Madrid ( , ) is the capital and most populous city of Spain. The city has almost 3.4 million inhabitants and a metropolitan area population of approximately 6.7 million. It is the second-largest city in the European Union (EU), and ...

. It is a consortium partnered by the

Ayuntamiento de Madrid The City Council of Madrid ( es, Ayuntamiento de Madrid) is the top-tier administrative and governing body of the Madrid, the capital and biggest city of Spain. The City Council is composed by three bodies; the Mayor who leads the City Council an ...

(31 %), the regional administration of the

Community of Madrid The Community of Madrid (; es, Comunidad de Madrid ) is one of the seventeen autonomous communities of Spain. It is located in the centre of the Iberian Peninsula, and of the Central Plateau (''Meseta Central''). Its capital and largest munic ...

(31 %), the Madrid Chamber of Commerce and Industry (31 %) and the Montemadrid Foundation. The first fair organised by Ifema took place in 1980. Until then Madrid did not celebrate fairs, as it was a privilege reserved to cities such as

Valencia Valencia ( va, València) is the capital of the autonomous community of Valencia and the third-most populated municipality in Spain, with 791,413 inhabitants. It is also the capital of the province of the same name. The wider urban area al ...

Barcelona Barcelona ( , , ) is a city on the coast of northeastern Spain. It is the capital and largest city of the autonomous community of Catalonia, as well as the second most populous municipality of Spain. With a population of 1.6 million within c ...

. Initially IFEMA had facilities in the

Paseo de la Castellana Paseo de la Castellana, commonly known as La Castellana, is a major thoroughfare in Madrid, Spain. Cutting across the city from South to North, it has been described as the "true structuring axis" of the city. History and description The street ...

and the

Casa de Campo The Casa de Campo (, for Spanish: ''Country House'') is the largest public park in Madrid. It is situated west of central Madrid, Spain. It gets its name 'Country House' because it was once a royal hunting estate, located just west of the ...

, but as it grew bigger, new facilities were opened in the Campo de las Naciones near the

Barajas Airport Barajas may refer to: *Barajas (Madrid), the district of Madrid in which the airport lies ** Barajas (Madrid Metro), station along Line 8 of the Madrid Metro **Adolfo Suárez Madrid–Barajas Airport, principal airport of Madrid, Spain * Barajas ( ...

in 1991. FITUR, SIMO, MOTORTEC, ARCO and the Madrid Fashion Week are some of the fairs organised by IFEMA. The facilities of IFEMA also served as the venue of COP25 and the 2022 NATO Summit. In March 2020, some halls of the Campo de las Naciones facilities were repurposed to serve as a 5,000 bed

field hospital A field hospital is a temporary hospital or mobile medical unit that takes care of casualties on-site before they can be safely transported to more permanent facilities. This term was initially used in military medicine (such as the Mobile Ar ...

during the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic.

References

{{authority control Organisations based in Madrid Fairs in Spain