UNITED KINGDOM 8th July 2010

It's official--London's Caffè Culture, including the SCAE Event, in late June hosted a record 11,363 visitors, by far the largest of the Caffè Culture shows ever, and the largest Association Event ever mounted.

The show, which had just under 300 international exhibitors taking part, had a huge increase in international visitors, thanks in great part to the World Barista Championship and the SCAE World Championship, which took place on special stages in the centre of each of the two massive halls at Kensington Olympia. (You can get the details of the winners of each of the SCAE's World Championships by clicking on Latest News to see a story on each one. The full scores for each participant, as well as the leader boards for each of the competitions are on the Blog at the SCAE World Championships website).

The London Event also included a highly praised and top-notch Conference, including presentations from many of the speciality coffee sector's luminaries, as well as a series of practical, hands-on Workshops. A full report on the SCAE's London Event at Caffè Culture will be included in the next issue of the Association's newsletter Café Europa.

The excitement of the Championships was matched by buzz in the exhibition itself, as dozens of international companies chose the show to launch new products and services. The Resource Centre in the SCAE Village area of the show (pictured) was frequently very busy, and the stand did a robust trade in speciality coffee resource items, including books, educational and technical materials and a range of SCAE clothing and accoutrements.

So successful was the Caffè Culture show that organiser Upper Street Events has already had bookings for 65% of the space allocated for the 2011 edition, which is scheduled for May 18-20.

Following an agreement between the SCAE and Upper Street Events, the two organisations will be partners in mounting the next SCAE Annual Event, to be held in Maastricht, the Netherlands, June 22-24, 2011. That Event will once again host the four SCAE World Championships, a Conference, Workshops, Exhibition and Social Programme. (As previously announced, the 2011 World Barista Championship will be held in Bogota, Colombia). More details of the 2011 Maastricht Event will be published here and in Café Europa shortly.