Our Role

The World Meeting of Families is one of the biggest events in the Roman Catholic Church calendar. The World Meeting of Families 2018 attended by Pope Francis took place in August in Dublin, Ireland and was a three-day congress, which involved hundreds of speakers and delegates, participating in a huge range of workshops, discussions, and activities for all the family.

At the heart of the globally-spanning network of activity leading up to the event, freight forwarder experts Interflow Logistics played a key role as official logistics provider for the event.

The Challenges we solved

Shipping and onsite handling was required at an exhibition running for the duration of the Pastoral Congress at the RDS, with more than 300 exhibition stands from 100 countries worldwide.

44,000 pilgrim bags required warehouse space for packing and then shipping to the RDS ahead of the opening ceremony

3,000 vestments for the celebrants were required to be delivered onsite, in pressed hanging condition.

The Outcome

For WMOF 2018, Interflow’s expertise in the complexity of international freight forwarder and transport arrangements, including customs protocols, all played a crucial role in ensuring that all elements of the various events for the World Meeting of Families arrived on site in Dublin in a timely and seamless fashion.

The Delivery

The Pastoral Congress between the exhibition, workshops and activities was a simply enormous event in its own right, and was staffed by a force of volunteers running into the thousands. As an indication of the global interest in this story, more than 400 media organisations were in the RDS every day for the Congress, and the overall events of WMOF were covered by some 1,200 media organisations worldwide. There was ongoing, fluid coverage of the various events on more than 10 dedicated social media channels.

For Interflow Logistics, the WMOF Dublin 2018 event project was a layered and multi-faceted challenge on a massive scale, and the challenges continued to well after the final Mass. This  challenge was relished by our Irish firm, which has over the years grown from a fledgling exhibition freight forwarder, to one of the biggest names in international freight transport, having acted as official agents for a succession of the world’s top trades shows and exhibitions.

Interflow Logistics have also previously shipped to the Vatican the WMOF2018 icon of the Holy Family, written by iconographer Mihai Cucu, and assisted by the Redemptoristine Sisters of the Monastery of St Alphonsus, Iona Road, Dublin.

“Interflow was the preferred partner for our live event logistics, moving on time and carefully the many items we needed at the various venues we were operational in the lead to World Meeting of Families and the Popes Visit to Ireland. Our requirements were complex ranging from very large deliveries to greenfield sites, to moving our precious Icon to the Vatican and back. We worked with Niall and his team for over two years and without Interflow, their support, advice, and hard work we would not have delivered. Niall always went the extra mile when we needed it and there were many times we needed it.”

Anne Griffin
General Manager
World Meeting of Families 2018