The 4th ACF: 37,000 visitors at this great celebration of coffee!
The 4th Athens Coffee Festival was completed confirming once more its potential and role as one of the top coffee festivals in the world.
Having as an ally the nice summer weather, this great celebration of coffee turned out to be the absolute hot spot of Athens throughout the last three days of September. Also Gazi turned into the informal capital of the second most commercial product in the world, attracting both professionals and coffee lovers from every corner of the country and the world. – The 100 exhibitors – the largest and most important coffee and coffee-industry-related equipment supply and production companies, welcomed the 37,000 visitors, a significant proportion of whom were industry professionals that had the opportunity to get informed on the developments in the industry, meet new people and close business deals.
The decision makers of the coffee industry met here
The Athens Coffee Festival was for yet another year a hot spot for industry professionals who wanted to have a chat with the most dynamic Greek coffee experts as well as with representatives of leading coffee brands, share their concerns with talented baristas and coffee specialists and exchange views with great personalities from the international coffee scene. At ACF 2019 visitors discovered firsthand, single origin, single estate, blends, specialty coffees, premium varieties from all over the world and became a part of this great coffee celebration of our city! Therefore it is no coincidence that at every corner of the festival you could find professionals that came to get informed on new products that could make a difference to their business, find equipment that can upgrade their store’s offered service and pick up the vibe of the coffee industry in our country by having a talk with the market’s business actors.
An educated and demanding consumer audience
Visiting consumers were also qualitatively better. As it follows from what the exhibitors, who had the opportunity to get to know their target audience, confessed to us, people were clearly more informed about coffee, varieties, techniques and more. This automatically means that demands are now pretty high and that coffee industry professionals must follow developments closely in order to improve both their product and services. As everyone acknowledged, the festival significantly contributed, for yet another year, to the achievement of this goal, by having the major companies of the industry present and distinguished and experienced professionals giving speeches.
A festival full of music, fun, competitions and knowledge!
Regarding the Coffee Masterclasses, it is worth noting that the Innovathens area, where they took place, was always full of spectators who had the opportunity to enrich their knowledge through a rich and targeted program. Just across from Innovathens and in particular in Hall D10, four national championships of SCA Greece (Latte Art, Roasters, Cezve/Ibrik and Cup Tasters) and Aeropress from Kudu, were being held.
There was unabated action at the main stage where nice music and competitions gave color and beat to the festival. A number of well-known radio producers such as Nikos Drogosis, Eva Boudouri, Sakis Tsitomenas, Spyros Pagiatakis, Eleni Manousaki, Mary Margeli, etc., through live shows and dj sets, entertained the public. There, visitors also had the opportunity to win generous gifts offered by the exhibitors of the Athens Coffee Festival, through trivia questions about coffee, addressed by the festival’s host Dimosthenis Loukisas. Of course, the highlight of the main stage was on Saturday night when the band – phenomenon Alcatrash, took the stage.
In conclusion, the Athens Coffee Festival continued its upward course at all levels and gave even greater promises for the next event to be held on 26-28 September 2020.
