Barcelonian of the Year 2024
El Periódico and Prensa Ibérica have created the Barcelonian of the Year award and celebrated its first edition this year. Coinciding with the Mercè Festival, the award aims to recognize a person who has contributed throughout the year to promoting, defining, or improving the city of Barcelona’s project, whether in the civic, economic, cultural, scientific, or social fields. The recipient of this first Barcelonian of the Year 2024 award was Mateo Valero, creator of the Barcelona Supercomputing Center (BSC-CNS) and other generations of supercomputers that have evolved to the current Mare Nostrum 5.
The goal of this new celebration in the city of Barcelona was to position it and raise awareness among the Catalan public, and the citizens of Barcelona. Since it was a new event, it was important to work on introducing it to the calendars and awareness of those who could be the target audience for the gala. Additionally, it was also important for the general public to know about the award and the winner.
For this event, El Periódico and Prensa Ibérica entrusted Intermèdia Comunicació with managing the invitation of attendees and providing support in organizing the event’s access. On one hand, it was important and necessary to build a broad database of personalities, institutions, and important figures to attend the gala. The dissemination and active confirmation of attendees was also crucial. On the day of the event, an experienced team in events management handled the reception of general guests and the most notable attendees, such as the newspaper's management and publishers, sponsors, and advertisers, who needed to pass through the photocall.
- Creation of a database of Barcelona’s civil society that would be interested in attending the event, as well as local journalists who could cover the event.
- Technical secretariat, guest management, and confirmations.
- Drafting and sending of the "Save the Date" and invitations.
- Protocol and reception of the event in collaboration with the event organizers.
- Control of guests at the photocall with subsequent assistance to the audiovisual team to identify personalities and their respective roles.
- Sending post-event emails with photos of the attendees and the gala.
On September 18, 2024, the gardens of the Palau Robert hosted the first Barcelonian of the Year gala organized by El Periódico and Prensa Ibérica, which brought together family members, newspaper employees, friends, businesspeople, institutions, associations, civil society, and other personalities. Around 400 people attended the event, representing leading and influential companies in the country such as TRAM, Parlem Telecom, Estabanell, Vueling, Barcelona Health Hub, Boqueria, Leitat, Dentsu, BSM, Oracle, and others. Additionally, several institutional figures attended, including the Mayor of Barcelona, Jaume Collboni; the Minister of Economy, Alícia Romero; and the Consul of South Korea, Younghyo Park, among others, as well as various members of Catalan political parties and representatives of Barcelona’s City Council.
