Filo 2026
Milano.

What Filo is, in two lines

Filo is the international B2B trade show for yarns and fibres for orthogonal weaving and circular knitting, serving the textile-clothing, accessory, and furnishing supply chain. Founded in 1993, it is held twice a year in Milan (February and September) and organised by AssoServizi Biella. It brings together spinning mills, ennobling/dyeing/finishing companies, and producers of natural and man-made fibres.

It is not a show open to the public: it is an upstream supply-chain appointment, where the next season’s yarn collection is selected and where orders close in the weeks after the halls shut. That is why managing the contacts you collect matters as much as the on-site presence.

What to exhibit, where to exhibit

Filo 64 (September 2025) was held in Hall 14 at Fiera Milano Rho; the assignment for Filo 66 has not yet been published, so check the final floor plan on the official site before booking. The product mix on display covers three macro-areas:

• Yarns for orthogonal weaving: cotton, wool, linen, silk, blends, and technical fibres
• Yarns for circular and warp knitting: classic and fancy, for knitwear and jersey
• Fibres and ennobling: natural and man-made fibres, dyeing, finishing, sustainable/recycled-content materials

If your offering touches multiple areas (e.g. a spinner proposing both weaving yarns and knitting lines), consider a central transit position. Buyer flow is concentrated and the show is compact: over two days, visitors walk the hall several times and the key contacts pass your booth early.

Visitor profile, who actually enters the booth

Filo is a show for upstream supply-chain professionals: whoever walks in is almost always a technical or purchasing decision-maker, not a casual visitor. The typical mix:

• Buying offices and purchasing managers from knitwear mills, weavers, and converters, looking for yarns for the next season’s collection
• Stylists and fashion designers, there for material research and colour/hand trends
• Import-export managers and international retailers: a significant foreign presence (16 countries at Filo 64, Sep 2025)
• Business owners and top managers of Italian textile SMEs, who decide first-hand
• Textile consultants and converters who aggregate suppliers for their end clients

The buying cycle is seasonal: a contact made at the September Filo works on a collection that launches months later. This means the lead does not go cold in days, but it still has to be nurtured consistently so you do not lose your place in the collection.

How to prepare in the 4 weeks before the event

Week -4, messaging audit

Verify that your value proposition answers the three questions every Filo buyer asks within the first 30 seconds at the booth:

1. What yarn/fibre you offer, in one sentence (composition, count, end use)
2. For which collection/season, precise positioning (e.g. “combed wools for knitwear FW 27/28”)
3. What sets you apart: certifications, recycled/sustainable content, MOQ, lead time, sampling service

No generic catalogues. Colour cards, physical samples, and one clear sentence repeated by every team member.

Week -3, booth operations playbook

Define who does what across the two days (Filo is short; a staffing mistake is paid for immediately):

• Who greets and qualifies on the fly
• Who handles the technical review of the sample range
• Who is in the back office (HQ) running live follow-up during the event (yes, this is a game changer, see below)
• Who looks after owners and senior buyers who show up without an appointment

With only two days, peak time slots must be fully staffed: do not bunch breaks and demos into the same slot.

Week -2, qualification form

Every contact collected must be qualified on the spot, not “after the show”. The critical questions for a yarn buyer are few:

1. Season/collection: which collection are you working on? (SS/FW, year)
2. Volumes and MOQ: sampling orders or production? indicative quantities?
3. Decision: direct purchase or routed through the style office/converter?

Everything else (company data, markets, revenue, references) can be retrieved from the 30+ public data sources that good automated enrichment covers, without stealing precious booth time.

Week -1, CRM integrations

The classic mistake: business cards collected in a box, photos of badges, colour cards promised “by email next week”, and then no one moves the contacts into the CRM. Follow-up starts on average 9 days after the event, by which time the buyer has already consulted other spinners and the place in the collection has narrowed.

Configure the system so that every badge or card scan, at the fair, lands directly in the company CRM (HubSpot, Salesforce, Pipedrive), with event tag, qualification answers, and a voice note from the sales rep. Not in an Excel, not in a third-party app, not in a Google sheet “we’ll tidy up on Monday”.

Is the official Filo app worth it?

The answer here is simple: Filo has no official visitor app. Entry to the show is free but requires badge pre-registration via the online form on filo.it. No interactive map, no in-app exhibitor list, no QR scanning provided by the organiser.

For exhibitors this changes little: the point is still how to capture and manage the contacts you collect at the booth. The real options are three:

• Paper (business cards, manual forms): slow to digitise, error-prone, and part of the leads is always lost.
• CRM native mobile scanning (HubSpot, Salesforce have the feature): works if the team knows how to use it; at the fair, under pressure, it is often clunky.
• Dedicated lead capture system → CRM → follow-up: badge/card scanned at the booth, contact already in the CRM with event tag, qualification, and voice note, then automated enrichment and follow-up. This is the pattern Linkly executes: see how Linkly works.

In a short, concentrated show like Filo, the difference between “everything in the CRM tonight” and “we’ll tidy it up Monday” is measured directly in sampling orders closed or lost.

What to do during the 2 days of the fair

Day 1 (Tuesday), opening

• Team briefing at 8:15 am: review the 3 messages, the roles, and where the colour cards are
• Calibration: the first 10 contacts are for fine-tuning the qualification questions
• End of day debrief: which yarns attract attention, which questions recur, what to prepare for tomorrow

Day 2 (Wednesday), closing

In a two-day show, the second day is not a drop-off like in longer fairs: the buyers who walked the hall on Tuesday to compare come back to finalise their selection. Always keep a senior person on hand who can talk volumes, prices, and lead times. It is the day when Tuesday’s contacts turn into concrete sampling requests.

What to do in the 7 days after the fair

The average time between fair and first post-event contact, in textiles, is about 9 days. At a seasonal show like Filo, where the next collection is decided immediately, this delay costs your place in the range. Companies that drop below 48 hours achieve a markedly higher conversion-to-sampling-request rate.

The winning follow-up playbook:

1. Within 24h: personalised email to every qualified contact with season/volumes/decision. No templates: reference the specific yarn they looked at on the booth.
2. Within 7 days: assign 1 sales contact per lead. Schedule a concrete touchpoint (colour card shipment, samples, quote), no batch email.
3. Within 14 days: deliver on promises made at the booth (samples, datasheets, prices). Automatically extractable from the sales rep’s voice notes if the system recorded them.
4. Within 30 days: executive report on performance vs target, distribution by sales rep, market, sampling requests, and estimated pipeline. Use it to justify the next edition (February) to management.

Practical FAQ

How much does it cost to exhibit at Filo 2026?

The organiser does not publish an open price list: costs depend on square footage, hall position, and build-out, and must be requested directly from AssoServizi Biella via filo.it. As a purely indicative figure, a presence at a short B2B show like Filo typically sits at €8,000 to €20,000 for space + build-out for a small-to-mid booth, plus €3,000 to €8,000 in staff, travel, and materials (colour cards, sample range). Realistic total range €11,000 to €28,000; always request the official quote.

How do you register and how much is visitor entry?

Entry to Filo is free for professionals but requires badge pre-registration via the online form on filo.it. There is no official app: badges and information go through the website.

Two days is short: is the second day quiet?

No, not as in three-day fairs. Filo is a compact, seasonal show: on Wednesday the buyers return who did their first comparison round on Tuesday and finalise their selection. Staff both days at full strength.

What is the alternative to paper for collecting contacts?

Paper (business cards, manual forms) is the worst option: slow, error-prone, leads lost. Better to use a lead capture system that brings the contact directly into the CRM with event tag, qualification, and voice note, then automated enrichment and follow-up. See how it works.

Is it better to exhibit at the September or February Filo?

It depends on your collection calendar. Filo is held twice a year: the September edition catches the buyers working on the next season’s collection, while February anticipates the opposite cycle. Many spinners exhibit at both; if you must choose one, align it with the season in which your yarns enter the collection.

Page updated ahead of the 2026 edition. For official information, the final floor plan, and exhibitor/visitor registration please refer to filo.it.