Web Summit revenues climb to nearly €48m in 2019

Revenues at the group that operates the Web Summit rose to €47.9 million in 2019.

Newly filed accounts for Manders Terrace Ltd, the holding company behind the Web Summit and other events, show turnover increased from €35 million a year earlier.

Earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortisation (ebitda) totalled €9.3 million.

The Web Summit conference was founded by Paddy Cosgrave, Daire Hickey and David Kelly in Dublin in 2009, with 150 attendees at the inaugural event. It relocated to Lisbon in 2016 under a deal with the Portuguese government. The last in-person Web Summit event, which took place in November 2019, had 70,469 attendees.

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Physical event

The company was forced to cancel its planned physical event in Lisbon last year due to the coronavirus pandemic. It subsequently ran a virtual version of the conference last December, attracting 104,000 people.

The company said that despite “significant losses in revenue” last year due to the Covid crisis, it had no redundancies and staff pay was not cut. It also said it provided the option of refunds to partners and attendees of its events.

Web Summit has a 10-year agreement with the Portuguese government to host its flagship event in Lisbon. It also recently agreed a five-year deal to hold a Japanese edition in Tokyo, with the first event scheduled for September 2022.

The company’s existing Asian conference is relocating to Kuala Lumpur after a five-year residency in Hong Kong.