EU: On Hempfairs
My name is Sergio Martinez, director of the Green Guide sl and organiser of the Highlife Fair in Barcelona together with Boy. In the first place I want to congratulate you for the great work and effort that you are making in favour of the normalisation of our beloved marijuana plant, and in the second place to let you know that that we understand perfectly your point of view that you cannot assist to any of the fairs as they are being organised in the same days.
Although we accept respect and understand your position we would like you to know the reasons for the fact that the Highlife BCN and the Expocannabis in Madrid take place on the same dates.
As everyone knows Highlife BCN is organised in october since its first edition, in 2004. At that time, Spannabis decided to locate its fair in London (the London hemp fair) at only few weeks distance of our event. In our second edition in 2005, Spannabis decided to organise the Expocannabis in Madrid weeks before ours and the London Hemp fair weeks after.
In our third edition in 2006, before we even had announced our fair to take place in october, Spannabis announced (in its magazine) that the Expocannabis fair in Madrid would take place in October without mentioning the exact days. This led to the decision of Highlife BCN to move its dates from October 2006 to January 2007 and Highlife Amsterdam from January to February.
We do not understand why Spannabis -organiser of the Expocannabis together with the Cañamo magazine) decided to move Expocannabis to the same dates as Highlife BCN. After we announced the new dates on 19, 20 and 21 January 2007, Expocannabis decided to move the dair yo January, and to the same dates as us..
We do not understand why Spannabios wants to use its fair in Madrid to boycot our fair. We already have moved outr fair once from October to january, it is impossible to move it back again.
It is known by many that Spannabis does not have permission to rorganise its fair in Barcelona. One year ago, Highlife BCN had a meeting in Madrid with Moises and Ernesto of Cañamo magazine, Carlos Yerbes y Carlos Palomino of Spannabis and myself representing Highlife BCN. this meeting had been called for by Highlife BCN to propose Spannabis to organise two fairs in Spain: Highlife BCN in Barcelona and Expocannabis in Madrid, with 6 months of distance between each other, and supporting each other mutually. this meeting was not at all fruitful. The words that were used by Mr. Palomino were that Expocannabis had been organised to chase away Highlife bcn so there would be free space for Spannabis in Barcelona.
We are always willing to have a dialogue and negotiate, but what needs to be clear is that Highlife is not guilty of the fact that both fairs take place the same date, the prove is the fact that Expocannabis was announced for october, and since Highlife BCN was announced for January, Expocannabis decided to change the dates for January as well, without having permissions nor space to organise its fair in Madrid. To us this attitude seems to be not very professional.
Cordially
Sergio Martinez
Co-organiser Highlife bcn.
Green Guide sl
Sergio Martinez
Avda Sant Julia 206-220 nave 10
pol. ind. el Congost
08403 Granollers
Barcelona-Spain
tel +34938404830
fax +34938402997
mobil +34625619887
www.greenguideeurope.com
