With the intervention of the Latin Patriarch of Jerusalem Pierbattista Pizzaballa, the 45th edition of the Meeting for Friendship between Peoples began, the event organized by the Communion and Liberation movement at the Rimini Fair. Opening speech by the Bishop of Rimini Nicolò Anselmi and the President of the Meeting Foundation Bernhard Scholz.
The Patriarch of the Latins of Jerusalem Pierbattista Pizzaballa at the 45th edition of the Meeting for Friendship between Peoples (YouTube)
On Middle East Negotiations Pizzaballa: I have some doubts but I'm the last train
“The war” in the Middle East “will end. Now I hope that with the negotiations underway we will achieve something, I have some doubts… in any case it is the last train: if we do not reach a ceasefire – the fire will now be dramatic. We are at a derisory moment: we can go towards a ceasefire or towards a degeneration, everything depends on the next few days, this is why I asked and it is important to pray: this is the moment. The only thing left for us to do.” Thus Cardinal Pierbattista Pizzaballa, Patriarch of Jerusalem, at the opening of the Rimini Meeting. “We are at a decisive moment, decisive with the ongoing dialogue, I don't know if it is about dialogues… The impact that this war has had on the two populations has been unique, unprecedented. For Israel – said the cardinal – what happened on October 7 is an incredible shock: Israel was born as a country where Jews are at home and are safe and on October 7 it made it clear that the Palestinians are not safe, something that has never been seen before. the exasperation of feelings that were already there, but which have now become a common language: hatred, resentment, revenge, deep distrust, the inability to recognize the existence of the other. A language of rejection of the other that has become daily. matter and which is something dramatic”. “Either way, one way or another, the war will end, but rebuilding from these attitudes of distrust, hatred and deep contempt will be an enormous effort that will have to involve all of us,” he concluded.
The program of the 2024 Meeting
From 20 to 25 August the Rimini Meeting for the Friendship of Peoples begins, with conferences, meetings, exhibitions and shows. Here is the meeting in numbers, which are anything but cold, they tell us from a particular visual angle the uniqueness of an event like the Meeting. Here they are by chapters.
Spaces and facilities
The 2024 Meeting will cover approximately 120,000 square metres of the Rimini Fair area. For a year, the team of architects organising the spaces has been developing 45 successive versions of the master plan to organise the 23 pavilions that will host the event, covered with 35,000 m2 of carpet and decorated with 1,500 plants, including 63 birches up to 4 metres high. 7,000 m2 of wood and 3,580 linear metres of slatted panels have been used for the installations. Six squares/gardens will enrich the spaces, while the offices will occupy 5,000 m2. Concern for the environment is also fundamental: 250 kg of PET plastic will be collected thanks to the collaboration between the Meeting and Coca Cola and 5 eco-compactors have been installed.
Conferences and meetings
The program includes 140 conferences with about 450 Italian and international speakers, including 100 foreigners. Almost everyone will be present: less than twenty speakers connected live online.
Exhibitions
There will be 16 exhibitions organized, while the number of curators is 60. There are 70 students from the Brera Academy who have worked on the embellishment of the exhibition spaces, designed by 15 architects. Six catalogs and two volumes will be produced from the exhibitions. Nine of the exhibitions of the 2024 edition will then take place in a traveling format and will be presented in various Italian cities starting in September.
Shows
There are 18 shows scheduled, spread across 3 external venues, including the prestigious Galli Theatre, and 2 internal venues, with the total participation of 80 artists. Tickets for Galli's shows are available on Vivaticket.
Children's Village
The Children's Village, with its 3,700 m2, will host a rich program of exhibitions, meetings, shows and workshops, for a total of more than 200 events. Participation is already enthusiastic: in 2023, it is estimated that around 17,000 young people and children will participate and many workshops are already fully booked.
Citadel of sport
The space dedicated to sport has more than doubled compared to 2023, exceeding 15,000 m2, in collaboration with the Italian Sports Center and Derthona Basket. Even in this area, participation is massive, with many sold-out sporting events.
Restoration
There are 18 catering points at the Meeting, with various regional specialties and options also for those with gluten intolerance. There are 580 catering tables with 3,500 seats. What will be the most popular dish of 2024? The goal is to surpass the 7,000 dishes of trofie with pesto served last year.
Fundraising
70 volunteers will be involved in promoting support for the Meeting, with 11 fixed stations and 2 mobile ones, while 10,000 lottery tickets have been printed, always in high demand by the public of the Meeting.
Volunteers
This year again, 3,000 volunteers will be present at the meeting, 500 at the pre-meeting and 2,500 during the event, 60 percent of whom are under 30. There are 110 different types of tasks that will be accomplished by the volunteers, from parking to room maintenance, from communication to exhibition guides, from catering to very specific aspects such as the 13 “small change merchants” responsible for replenishing the 142 cashiers of the Meeting with coins.
Technology and communication
This year there will be 94 volunteer audio and video technicians (last year there were 81) divided into 9 operational sectors. They will find themselves managing 150 video streams in 7 languages for a total of 200 hours of live streaming. 14 cameras will be used in the 4 main rooms and 7 in the three arenas, because from 2020 to today most of the Meeting conference rooms are also designed as television studios with a control room and various cameramen. More than 260 – figures continually updated – are the external publications that will relaunch the live videos of the Meeting on their sites, more than double the 2023 when there were 129. The Meeting website www.meetingrimini.org will allow you to book almost all of the 400 activities offered: participation in conferences, visits to exhibitions, access to exhibitions and workshops in the children's village, sporting events.
Images
It is estimated that the meeting's 35 volunteer photographers will take more than 300,000 photos during the event, 20,000 of which will be uploaded to Flickr databases and public folders accessible to journalists.
Companies
The number of partner companies of the Meeting 2024 is increasing, this year reaching 180: we remember the main partners Intesa Sanpaolo and Cattolica Generali, the official partners Automobile Club d'Italia, Autostrade per l'Italia, Confagricoltura, Eni, Hines, Invitalia, isybank, Engineering, Ferrovie dello Stato Italiane, Fondazione Ania, Enel, Montello, the official green carrier Trenitalia, the safety partner Veronese, the mobility partner Reggini and the communication partner Comin&Partners.
Establishments
There is also great attention from the institutions: the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and International Cooperation will manage a space dedicated to the theme “There is an Italy that cooperates”, while the in-depth analysis carried out by the Meeting for years on the themes of infrastructure, transport, urban redevelopment and the environment will take shape in physical spaces in which the Ministry of Infrastructure and the Ministry of the Environment and Energy Security will also participate. Also present at the Fair with their own spaces are the Ministry of Cultural Heritage, the Ministry of Education and Merit and the Ministry of Agriculture, Food Sovereignty and Forests. The presence of the Italian regions is also very significant; 11 have chosen the Meeting this year to promote their institutional activities, especially in the sectors of tourism, food and wine, environment and energy.
