Paddy Cosgrave will be wrapping his Web Summit up and moving it to Lisbon from 2016, after five years of happy hunting in Dublin.

The tech-focused event, which has expanded considerably since Cosgrave launched it in 2011, will be housed in the MEO Arena and FIL Feira Internacional de Lisboa next year and is expected to remain in Lisbon for a number of years.

Speaking about the decision, Cosgrave said: “We know now what it takes to put on a global technology gathering and we know that if Web Summit is to grow further, we need to find it a new home. Our attendees expect the best.”

Cosgrave’s tech summit came a little unstuck last year when it struggled with WiFi coverage in the RDS. The increasing size of the event – along with the growing attendances – is also proving to be a logistical strain in terms of venues and accommodation.

“Lisbon is a great city with a thriving startup community,” Cosgrave explained. “What’s more, it has great transport and hotel infrastructure and a state-of-the-art venue with capacity for more than 80,000 attendees.”

In Association with

The Web Summit founder had been hinting at a move for some time and had been building various other conferences and summits away from the main Dublin event.

“In the last six months we have held gatherings in Las Vegas and Hong Kong,” said Cosgrave. “These new brands – Collision in the US (which next year will be in New Orleans) and RISE in Hong Kong – are now firmly established. Next February, this stable of events will be joined by SURGE in India.”

Earlier this year, Cosgrave organised two standalone conference in Belfast. MoneyConf focused on finance technology and innovations, while EnterConf focused on business/enterprise technologies.

According to the most recent filed accounts, Manders Terrace, the operating company for Web Summit and several other of Cosgrave’s events, had retained profits of €493,000 in 2013 and cash reserves of €1.1m.

Cosgrave said that Dublin will remain the HQ for the Web Summit, where it employs 130 staff.

He added: “We are an Irish company. Our roots are Irish. Our first attendees were all Irish. It was those first attendees who became our greatest champions, spreading the word of Web Summit far and wide. We couldn’t have gotten here without them.”

Embarrassing

Dublin City Councillor Jim O’Callaghan said the loss to Dublin of the Web Summit is hugely embarrassing for the city and for the country. The Dublin Bay South candidate queried whether the government was notified by the organisers that a re-location for the Summit was imminent.

“If the government was notified that the Web Summit organisers were considering a move away from Ireland as host location and failed to act then serious questions need to be asked,” he said.

“The Summit is a prize event and worth millions to the Dublin economy and millions more to the country in foreign direct investment potential. To let it slip away like this is not acceptable. According to reports, the CEO of Web Summit Paddy Cosgrave is blaming a lack of state funding assistance and lack of infrastructure for the move and other contributing factors, which means the eye was taken off the ball.

“It is clearly too late to address these issues now to encourage the Web Summit to remain in its home country. But  the question is whether minister Richard Bruton and the government could have salvaged the situation earlier by acting faster."

Fianna Fáil tourism spokesman Timmy Dooley added: “This is a very bad decision for Ireland and the government has serious questions to answer over its inability to hold onto a major international event that was born in Ireland. The Web Summit put Ireland on a global stage and was a massive opportunity to grow investment, employment and tourism opportunity for the country.

“The founders of the Web Summit have said they have chosen Lisbon because it has strong infrastructure, a growing startup community and top class venue. We know the Web Summit had genuine concerns about WiFi at last year’s event and other issues have arisen in previous years. What efforts were made by the government to keep the Web Summit in Ireland? Or were any efforts made?

“The government has been trumpeting its record on the economy and jobs and making Ireland a major player on the world stage for investment. Now its lack of action has shown Ireland up with international high tech firms.

“The Government needs to explain why it sat back and allowed this decision to take place. It is extremely disappointing and puts a serious dent in Ireland’s global reputation as a key technology player.”

Web Summit will take place at the RDS this year from November 3 to 5, with ancillary events planned, as in previous years, for various venues around the city.

There will be 21 summits held this year, covering the likes of startups, investors, sport, design, data and coding. Peopling these will be over 1,000 speakers and some 30,000 attendees.

Among the speakers secured for Web Summit this year are Instagram co-founder Mike Krieger, Pixar Animation president Ed Catmull and author Dan Brown.

Exit stage left: Paddy Cosgrave is taking his Web Summit to Lisbon for a few years