Done deal. Web Summit stays in Lisbon for 5 more years

The biggest tech event in the world is going to stay in Lisbon, at least for five more years. In 2016, the event arrived at Lisbon to stay.

Now, we’re in 2018 and Paddy Cosgrave and his team are getting ready to announce, together with the Portuguese government, the continuation of this beautiful friendship for five more years, in a deal which might be renewed for five additional years, until 2028, according to the Portuguese radio Antena 1. 

Our newspaper, ECO, had already advanced in July that this could occur: a deal of 5 plus 5 years between Lisbon and Paddy Cosgrave’s tech summit. At the time, there were many other offers on the table.

The deal will be signed this Wednesday between the Web Summit’s leadership and the Portuguese Government, one month before the event kicks off.

Paddy Cosgrave’s Web Summit was founded in Dublin in 2009, and Lsbon was its first home abroad in 2016. The government announced a year before the event took place, that it would be coming to Lisbon, for at least 3 years, with the possibility of estending it for two more years. However, since last year, dubts increased regarding whether the event would stay or not at the Portuguese capital, which was mostly motivated by the event organizers willingness to make the Web Summit even bigger than it has been so far.

By the end of June, ECO announced that the government was negotiating the continuity of the event in Lisbon for five plus five years, with Caldeira Cabral’s office (Economy Minister) leading the negotiations, accompanyed by Pedro Siza Vieira (Assistant Minister), Medina (Mayor of Lisbon), and the Prime Minister himself, António Costa.

This tuesday, the Web Summit’s organization spiked the public as it updated their Twitter profile with four photos from four different cities: Berlin, Lisbon, Madrid and Valencia, all of which were possible candidates to hsot the four-day-long event.

The only offer made public was that from the spanish town of Valencia, as the government of Spain had offered to make an investment of about €50m to host the event during ten years. The investment from the Spanish government would go up to  €170m if all the infrastructures needed for the event were taken into account.

Tweet from @WebSummit

The Web Summit looked at Lisbon for the first time because of Codacy, Jaime Jorge’s leading startup. The startup won the Beta award in 2014, one of the 199 projects and competitions promoted by the Web Summit’s organization every year. According to the Economy Ministry, the governemnt invests around €1.3m per year to hold the event in Lisbon, while it profits arounf €300m per year, in services such as accomodation and transports for the event’s audience, which were estimated to be around 60 thousand people, coming from 170 different countries last year, according to Web Summit’s statistics.

The agreement for the event to stay in Lisbon will be signed tomorrow, Wednesday, in Altice Arena, and more news should be coming up regarding the world’s biggest tech event. This year, the event shall attract over 70 thousand people from 170 different countries.