1-day convention in Barcelona

A one-day convention in Barcelona brings your team together from morning to night at a single venue: a leadership plenary, breakouts by region or product, lunch, workshops, awards and a close with an activity or dinner. We organise the venue, the programme, the technical production and the transfers so nobody wastes time between sessions.

Who is a one-day convention for?

It is the most efficient format when most of the team works in Barcelona or arrives by train or plane that same morning. It suits start-of-year kick-offs, mid-year sales conferences, all-staff annual meetings and internal strategy presentations.

It is also the logical option when the budget needs to go into content rather than accommodation. With no hotel nights, spend is shared between venue, technical production, catering and the closing night.

What does not fit well into one day is intensive product training, certifications or an international group that needs to recover from the journey. In those cases we recommend the 2-day programme.

Why Torre Melina and the Palau de Congressos de Catalunya?

We propose this site on the Diagonal because it solves the main problem of a one-day convention: losing time moving the group around. Gran Meliá Torre Melina has 22 rooms and 2,758 m² of meeting space, with the Marenostrum room for up to 850 people. From its spaces there is direct access to the Palau de Congressos de Catalunya, with an auditorium of more than 2,000 seats and 39 rooms. All around are some 25,000 m² of gardens for lunch, the activity and the drinks reception.

We know the venue well: we produced the Meliá Members Fest there, a five-day programme with a stage, themed dinners and entertainment in the gardens.

It is not the only option. For groups of up to 240 people theatre style, the Hotel Miramar on Montjuïc offers function rooms and terraces overlooking the port. That is where we organised Edenred's E-Day: welcome, sessions, awards and celebration in a single venue and in a single day. If you want the sea, Hotel Arts or the World Trade Center Barcelona are solid alternatives.

How does the programme scale from 100 to 800 people?

The agenda above is an indicative sample programme: we adjust it to your message, your timings and the size of your group. This is what changes most with attendee numbers:

With more than 300 people, registration needs more desks, lunch moves to a food-station format and the evening needs a stage with its own show flow and rehearsal.

Logistics and transfers

The site is on the Diagonal, in the Les Corts district, about 25 minutes by coach from the airport and next to Palau Reial metro station. For teams coming from the office, we arrange coaches with fixed departure times; for those arriving by train or plane, pick-ups at Sants and the airport based on arrival manifests.

If dinner is held at another venue, the transfer takes about 20 minutes, on coaches that wait for the group until the end of the night. On the way back, staggered routes to offices, stations and hotels.

How to close the day: activity or dinner

The close is what the team talks about when they get back. You have two options:

• Activity and drinks. A team challenge, a tasting or a cooking workshop in the gardens, followed by a farewell drinks reception before 19:00. This is the option for local teams.
• Closing dinner. At the hotel itself or at a unique venue such as Poble Espanyol, with a seated dinner, entertainment and music. For format ideas, see gala dinners.

Team activities as a format in their own right are run by our sister brand Be Events; here we build them into the programme with timings and transfers already worked out. If you want to go further, [re] Conventions Experience is our turnkey experiential convention format.

What changes with the season

A one-day convention works all year round. January and September are peak kick-off months. From May to October lunch and the activity can be held outdoors; in winter we move them inside and keep the garden for the drinks reception if it is not raining. Avoid the ISE and MWC weeks, when the city's hotels are at peak demand: check the trade fair calendar.

Budget: what it depends on

We do not publish prices because every convention is different, but the cost lines are always the same:

• Venue: room hire per day or day delegate package per person, and build-up hours.
• Technical production: stage size, screens, live streaming and interpreting.
• Catering: number of breaks, type of lunch and dinner menu.
• Closing night: venue, entertainment, music and bar hours.
• Transfers: number of coaches and routes.
• People and content: host, external speakers, videos and graphic design.

We explain this in more detail in our guides on how much a convention in Barcelona costs and on sales conferences and kick-offs.

If you are planning a one-day convention, tell us about your project and within 24 business hours we will send you a proposal with venue, agenda and an itemised estimate.

Sources

1. Meliá: Torre Melina, a Gran Meliá Hotel
2. Meliá: reuniones y eventos en Torre Melina
3. Alimarket: Meliá reabre el Palau de Congressos de Catalunya
4. Última Hora: Meliá inaugura Torre Melina en Barcelona
5. Poble Espanyol: espacios para eventos