Amsterdam RAI — Attraction in Amsterdam

RAI Amsterdam Convention Centre: Netherlands

2exhibitions

RAI Amsterdam Convention Centre : Venue Name Category: Venue Location: RAI Amsterdam Convention Centre – Europaplein 24, 1078 GZ Amsterdam, The Netherlands Phone: 020 549 12 12 Email: --- www: --- Timings: 09:00 AM – 17:00 PM

RAI Amsterdam Convention Centre: About

RAI Amsterdam Convention Centre, formerly Amsterdam RAI Exhibition and Convention Centre or simply RAI Amsterdam, acronym for Rijwiel en Automobiel Industrie), is a complex of conference and exhibition halls in the Zuidas business district of Amsterdam, Netherlands.

Opened in 1961, the RAI welcomed its 75 millionth visitor in February 2001. Up to 2 million people visit the RAI every year. Some 50 international conferences and 70 trade shows are held at the RAI annually. The complex consists of 22 conference rooms and 11 multi-functional halls and has a total floor space of 112,200 m². The largest and oldest hall, Europahal RAI, has capacity for 12,900 people. The complex also includes a musical and concert theatre and underground parking space for over 4,000 cars.

The convention centre gives its name to the nearby Amsterdam RAI railway station.

History:

RAI Amsterdam has a rich history. What started in 1893 as an association for the bicycle industry has grown in just over a century into an internationally leading exhibition and conference organization. Many valuable encounters have taken place with us, often with prominent people. For example, at a public meeting in 1968, Martin Luther King spoke to hundreds of people about change. During AIDS2018, Bill Clinton and Prince Harry, among others, addressed the attendees about the impact of the global epidemic. Also big bands and artists were on stage with us, such as Frank Sinatra, Ike & Tina Turner and U2. During events like these, knowledge was shared, people were inspired and/or moved. Something in which we have gained enormous experience over all these years.

Our history in brief:

In the early years – until 1922 – we did not have our own exhibition center, but the Amsterdam Paleis voor Volksvlijt was used for bicycle exhibitions. The very first RAI exhibition was organized there in 1895. From 1922 we settled – for forty years – in our own building on the Ferdinand Bolstraat in Amsterdam. With a total area of ​​13,000m2, we attracted more and more exhibitors and visitors. Specialized trade shows from other industries took off enormously. The RAI building turned out to be too small.

In order to finance a new, large exhibition complex, the municipality of Amsterdam became a partner. He was happy to participate because of the favorable consequences for the economy of the region. The RAI Association and the Municipality of Amsterdam together formed a limited partnership from which the operation of RAI Amsterdam, which was separated from the RAI Association, was financed.

In 1961 we settled on the Europaplein in Amsterdam. Over the years we have added various halls here in addition to our well-known Europe hall (Europahal). Partly due to the market developments and the strongly growing appeal of the city of Amsterdam, we attracted more and more international, multi-day events. We fill a large part of our event calendar with this to this day. From major annual trade fairs and conferences such as Horecava, International Broadcasting Convention, Interclean, various theater performances to public events such as Kingsland and Het Amsterdamse Winterparadijs.

With the spatial vision for the future, we see ourselves established for the long term at the current location on Europaplein. We focus on sustainable development, with a healthy balance between social (people), ecological (planet) and economic (profit) value creation. The events that take place at the RAI contribute more and...

As someone who really wanted the P+R system in Amsterdam to work, I’m disappointed to say we’ve now failed at it twice – despite doing our best each time and even improving our understanding.

🔹 First attempt (October 2024) We parked at RAI, went straight to the metro via a side entrance, and missed the P+R ticket machine entirely. Thinking we were being smart, we bought 24-hour GVB tickets – only to find out later that this disqualified us from the P+R discount. Even when I tried to fix it by checking in again the next morning, it didn’t help since it wasn’t from the correct zone. We paid the full day fee (€33) and tried again the next day – this time properly using the P+R tickets. But again, we misunderstood how long they were valid and used them too late the next morning. Another failure.

🔹 Second attempt (August 2025) This time we researched more thoroughly. We bought 2 P+R tickets for €6, entered with our license plate, took the metro to the city, and returned within 24 hours. However, we thought the P+R tickets were 24-hour public transport passes (they are not!) and used them later in the day for a second ride inside the city. As a result, the return trip wasn’t accepted, and we had to buy 2 regular 24h GVB tickets for €9.50 each. Despite meeting all the actual P+R parking conditions – returning within 24h, entering/exiting in the city, paying within the time frame – the system rejected our discount due to the earlier ticket misuse. Again, full parking fee charged.

🔹 The bigger picture We are two educated adults (Master's degrees, no less) who genuinely tried to follow the rules. But the system is unintuitive, fragile, and in parts frankly overengineered. The fact that two of the three machines at RAI weren’t working didn’t help either. Even after researching and learning from past mistakes, we still got caught out by nuances like "only 2 rides allowed" or "only certain stations count."

It’s a great idea in theory, but the RAI implementation is confusing and unforgiving, especially compared to P+R Zeeburg, which worked much better for us. It's also a shame that RAI doesn't allow longer stays over the weekend – even 48 hours would make it much more practical for short city breaks during weekends.

Despite the frustration and extra cost, we did learn a lot – but at quite a price. I hope this feedback helps improve the...

Possibly one of the worst locations for an expo in Europe.

Having visited expo’s at every large city and arranged and organised shows at most of them as well we found this was by far the most complicated and frustrating show of a lot.

The people who actually arranged the show seemed to be pretty good, but the actual RAI staff were incredibly demanding often wanting lots of information about things they already had. Further to this, they didn’t fully understand any of the information we gave them..

It wasn’t just us we did speak to lots of other exhibitors that said they had lots of problems with this and we’re very worried about actually making it to the show on time .

Our stand was cleared three days before the event how on earth can you put a team under that much pressure? I’m really not sure what we would have done if our show STAND that looks the same as every other show we have exposed in Europe was not allowed to be built.

Having paid €20,000 to be here, it would’ve been a huge cost to us .

Staff were incredibly unfriendly and not particularly useful , Wi-Fi in the area was terrible and it actually took us an hour and a half to get into the venue on the first day meaning we only had 10 minutes to set our booth up.

The expo took place over five holes that all were different shapes and sizes. There was no clear corridor between all of them and we had lots of phone calls from people trying to visit us that were very lost.

If the expo does take place in Amsterdam again, we will certainly not be exhibiting.

In the meantime we will send our recommendations to the organiser of the expo (IAAPA) along with a few other exhibitors that we will not not to be exhibiting again in the hope that this event takes...