The Venice Seminar is a major event organised annually in Venice by the Embassy of Italy in London. The first edition was held in 1996. It is usually held over two days, during which high-level representatives of the Italian government hold informal discussions with members of the British and international press.
The talks take the form of interactive panel discussions with high-profile figures from the Italian industrial and financial world, who explain Italy’s position on political, economic and social issues of primary interest for the Italian, European and global political agenda.
It is typically attended by all the major British news outlets, including BBC News, the Financial Times, The Economist, The Guardian, Bloomberg, Thompson Reuters News, Sky News, The Independent, The Observer, TimesBuzzFeed, Channel 4 News, the Daily Mail, the Daily Telegraph and the Evening Standard.
The Seminar is also an important opportunity for cultural diplomacy. Over the years, numerous projects, artworks and initiatives relating to both Venice itself and the Italian cultural landscape in general have been presented at the Seminar, sometimes for the first time.
