Final preps underway for Padel World Summit
Padel World Summit 2025
Last year’s inaugural Padel World Summit proved an outstanding success, attracting thousands of delegates from the around the world to Malaga for three days of exhibitions, seminars and networking. The 2025 edition kicks off on May 27th, this year in Barcelona. Lee McLaughlan reports on what delegates can expect.
As one of the world’s sporting hubs it is only natural that Barcelona will host the second Padel World Summit. That’s the verdict of Alex Ponseti, who is again in charge of delivering padel’s biggest business-to business event in the world.
Ponseti believes the new-look Padel World Summit, being held at Fira de Barcelona, has found its natural home, with plans for the city to become the event’s de facto host city (next year’s Summit has already been pencilled in).
Fira is not only hosting, it’s closely involved in the organisation, which Ponseti believes is a major plus: “Fira has an excellent reputation and experience in organising major events and, like us, they want to do it bigger. They bring new tools and resources that we didn’t have last year. They are invested in the event together with the International Padel Cluster as the owner of the brand. Fira has seen the big potential of this event, that we want to do it even better and bigger.”
Ponseti is a Barcelona native, describing the city as ‘one of the most amazing places in the world in terms of sports’. He championed its rich sporting heritage – it boasts one of the world’s biggest football clubs, FC Barcelona, that has been home to Johann Cruyff, Maradona and Messi. F1 drivers compete at the Circuit de Barcelona-Catalunya, while those of a certain age will recall the memorable images of the 1992 Olympics. It also cemented itself on the global padel stage, hosting the showpiece end-of-season finals of the Premier Padel Tour, while it is also home to the International Padel Cluster, primary stakeholders in the Padel World Summit.
After the majesty of Malaga in 2024, which proved an excellent host for the inaugural event, all eyes are now on Barcelona to deliver three unmissable days.
This year’s event will be bigger – more exhibition space, more exhibitors and more attendees – and bring new ideas to the Summit while sticking with tried and trusted elements such as the Investor Forum.
One of the biggest changes for 2025 is the congress (panel discussions, talks etc) being held alongside the expo and not in separate auditoriums. The panels and speakers proved a massive hit last year but overlapping events made for some tough delegate choices.
Ponseti explained: “It’s going to look quite similar in terms of being a trade fair for the padel industry while continuing to be a B2B event. We are going to have the congress, but the main difference is that it’s going to be an open congress, so everybody who attends the summit will be able to go to that as well. We found that people attending in Malaga were expecting to go to the Congress but were not able to, so we decided to do it this way.
“The auditorium will be connected to the main headline activities of the event. So if something is happening in the auditorium there are not going to be big activities in the Expo area and vice versa.
“There will be fewer panels but delivering greater insight and value to the padel business community. Themes will include how to manage clubs, the Olympics, technology, innovation and AI.
“We’ll have the investor forum for the start-ups and for companies that want to raise money, which was successful last year, while we’ll also have the leisure activities. It will look quite similar, but in a much better way, bigger and more professional.”
Seminars include Playtomic previewing its 2025 Global Padel Report, a panel discussion on growing club communities, padel’s Olympic journey and a discussion about padel in emerging regions moderated by journalist Adam Black on behalf of The Bandeja. For a full list of events click here.
Bigger and better is definitely the vibe for 2025, with more floor space, more exhibitors, new (and bigger) brands, larger exhibition stands and more padel courts – increased from five to eight for exhibition matches, demonstrations and activations.
“In terms of attendees, we are expecting to have more,” said Ponseti. “We had around 4,000 attendees in Malaga and we are expecting at least 6,000 in Barcelona. We are going to focus on European countries including the UK as I think they are critical because of the potential and the growth of padel. The US is another significant market for us to attract visitors from, while the likes of Asia and the Middle East have huge potential and potentially need the support to grow.”
Finally, Ponseti gave a personal reflection on this year’s Summit, and what it means to him having been given the responsibility to deliver this key event for the padel industry.
He said: “I feel it as the first event again, because it’s a different venue, a different location, a different staff, so what I love is that it looks like the first time again.
“I feel that I have to do less things, but not less work. I have to think a lot of how to be there and how to be the leader of this kind of event, but I’m super happy because I have a big team that can support me in different areas that I didn’t have last year. I was the marketing manager, the commercial director, the strategy director, the congress director, the managing director, I was them all, so I can do less things, but the same amount of work. This year, is very different and one I can have more focus.”
The Padel World Summit 2025 will be held at Fira de Barcelona from May 27-29th. For details of speakers, exhibitors and tickets click here. 🎾
