The normal mid-morning quiet at Ta’ Qali was broken by the loud boom boom sounds coming out of the great TFS (Tension Fabric Structure) as rehearsals for Friday’s and Saturday’s Song for Europe had started.

Inside, a huge state-of-the-art stage has been set up and is being tested. Everything must come right on Friday evening.

But one struggles to understand that as recently as last week, the Malta Fairs & Conventions Centre TFS was being used as the venue for a gala night for an incentive conference for 600 foreign visitors with space for a full banquet, dancing, and enough space to help the guests mingle and network.  This was the closing of a conference brought in by the DMC, EC Meetings.

For many of us, the MFCC is the venue for big events such as Song for Europe or the annual trade fair. But over and above these events for the local market, MFCC is increasingly being marketed as a conference venue.

This is not the sole novelty as regards MFCC. The bigger news is that over the past year, it has changed hands.

MFCC was set up in October 2006 initially between the Trade Fairs Corporation and Sign-It. Then Nexos replaced the Trade Fair. Eventually Catermax bought out Nexos in 2012 and last June it bought out Sign-It so that it is now the sole shareholder of MFCC.

Catermax is a joint venture between the Corinthia Group and the Vassallo Group with each group equally holding half the shareholding. The two groups have come together because there are many synergies between them and it is specifically this that has led them to acquire MFCC and to harbour great hopes with regard to MFCC’s potential and future.

In an interview, CEO Anita Mifsud and director of marketing Nadette Bugeja spoke about the company’s new developments.

Adding MFCC to the Catermax offer provides a venue and a conference centre, to which Catermax may add catering and hotel accommodation.

It is this combination that now enables Catermax to address in a better way the MICE segment and business travel in general.

The vision that set up MFCC eight years ago is still the same: a large multi-purpose hall which is flexible enough to be able to be used in a variety of ways, from an exhibition to a concert, to an event that requires a stage, from a gala dinner to an international conference, to a hi-tech event.

MFCC is ideally placed, away from traffic-intensive areas, central, and large  enough to hold events that would struggle or be impossible to hold in other venues.

Over the years, the staff at MFCC has come to establish close and cooperative relations with all the other stakeholders in the sector, from conference organisers to a wide variety of staff and out-fielders who can benefit from the venue’s flexibility to turn the venue into, for instance, a luxury venue such as was done for the L’Oreal conference, which was brought in by the DMC MI Malta last November, or events where creativity is called for and where the venue’s flexibility trumps for instance a hall with fixed seats.

This flexibility enhances the ability to make swift changes. Last week, for instance, it was a marketing conference and this weekend it will be Song for Europe. MFCC’s staff are trained and experienced enough to effect swift changeovers. The contractors who are engaged on for instance sound, lighting and stage management are very happy to work with the MFCC staff without any hassles or hitches and with everyone doing his part in collaboration with the rest.

Looking ahead, MFCC will continue to cater for the local market but it will increasingly focus on MICE events since this segment provides a lot of synergies with Catermax, its hotel accommodation and its catering facilities. It will host special events, exhibitions, trade shows and conferences. It is already experienced in hosting many of these events and it intends to market the venue and its ability at handling big events with many guests.

The company is now planning ahead on how to develop the business further. Shortly, it will be unveiling plans for a permanent venue. This will present an opportunity to study and incorporate the requests that have already been made as a result of discussions with DMC’s, promoters and other players in the local industry. Interantional consmutants have also been appointed to advise MFCC as the most important factor on which future plans are being built is that the venue must preserve its flexibility, its adaptability to various events and requirements, both locally and from overseas.

The plans for the future will pitch the company at a higher level and enable it to feature more at an international level. There is a lot of business going at this level, and many potential large clients who are very interested in what the company has to offer.

The Maltese economy stands to benefit from this wider international interest as, apart from the main events hosted at Ta’ Qali, delegates will require accommodation, have a lot of spare time when they can visit the rest of Malta’s attractions, from restaurants to cultural offerings.

It is for these reasons that MFCC gets much support from other industry stakeholders such as MTA and Air Malta. In the latter regard, getting the delegates of a large conference to Malta is still somewhat of a challenge, unless one charters planes. MFCC is however getting adept at dealing with these challenges. On the plus side, of course, is Malta’s strategic location.

Next week, MFCC will be announcing the list of exhibitions that will take place this year. Of course, the main item will be the annual trade fair which MFCC has been hosting since 2007. But MFCC will also be announcing some new titles giving the opportunity to exhibitors to attract more potential customers  to the venue.

MFCC is also a service provider, offering its brand of services and expertise in such areas as the organising of events, weddings, concerts and the like.

Catermax, as the leading provider of high quality and high volume catering, is very supportive in such events, both those held inside MFCC and those held externally.  Catermax can offer a complete package as its staff and kitchen can cope with events ranging from a gala dinner with all kinds of dietary requirements to food cooked and presented to meet international standards.

MFCC is also branching abroad – last July it set up the stages for the Coronation festival in the private gardens of Buckingham Palace and also for a four week festival in Cork with performers such as Elton John and Elvis Castello.  Its services in these events included the setting up and certification of the large staging structures that could support the heavy loads of the rigging of lighting and sound equipment.

The company is also planning further investment to upgrade its offer especially since nowadays customers prefer customised services.

For Anita Mifsud, this is a homecoming of sorts. An engineer by training, her first jobs were in the automotive industry where she worked with German company Merit which was later taken over by Methode, bringing her in close contact with prestige brands such as McLaren, Aston Martin and Jaguar.

Then, from 2007 to 2008 she was MFCC’s CEO before spending some years working in Dubai where she came in close contact with the organisation of events at the Dubai Trade Fair.

Now that she is back at MFCC, once again as its CEO, her prime concern is to improve the quality of service from the smallest details to the overall planning of events.

At Catermax and MFCC the owners,  although coming from different business segments, allow the professionals they employ full freedom to do their job.