International gastronomy congress · Donostia-San Sebastián
For sponsor delegations, brand activators and attending teams taking part in San Sebastián Gastronomika (Donostia-San Sebastián, early October), with the main stage and chef keynote sessions at the Kursaal congress palace, parallel classes at the Velodrome, B2B meetings with horeca buyers and food retail chains, and a brand-activation operation that combines on-site hospitality at the Kursaal and pop-ups in the Gros district. EUR + 21% VAT via FACe / SII (AEAT) and 24–48 h delivery from the Madrid hub.
San Sebastián Gastronomika is the professional meeting point of high-end gastronomy in southern Europe: four days of programming at the Kursaal with a main stage, parallel classrooms at the Velodrome and an exhibition area where horeca brands, food retail, DKV and international operators present new launches to chefs and buyers. It runs in the first half of October, with an annual thematic focus (territorial cuisine, silent cuisine, new front-of-house formats) and a strictly professional visitor profile — starred chefs, sommeliers, specialised press, distributors and organised-restaurant chains.
For sponsor delegations and brand-activation teams the operational brief is double-edged: on one hand, the event is pure B2B — the merch recipients are brand-aware chefs, distributors and specialised journalists, not a mass public; on the other, the Donostia setting demands October-rain resilience and humidity that affects cardboard and packaging. The briefs we usually receive combine polos and technical mid-layers for floor staff, lanyards and badges for guests and press, premium gift sets for visiting chefs and parallel-programming speakers, and POP material for the exhibition-area stands.
The Madrid production hub handles the entire order and delivers by road (SEUR, Correos Express, DHL) to the named consignee in Donostia — sponsor's office, reference hotel in the centre or in Gros, the Grupal Events office, or the Kursaal itself. The B2B invoice is issued in EUR with 21% VAT added via FACe / SII (AEAT); for intra-EU clients with a valid VIES number reverse-charge applies without Spanish VAT; for UK and non-EU clients the invoice is issued without VAT citing the corresponding EU directive article.
220 GSM polos and technical mid-layers in brand colours with two-colour screen-print or embroidery, combed-linen aprons for the Velodrome workshops, softshell jackets for the Kursaal evening hospitality, and caps embroidered with the sponsor's monogram for the front-of-house team.
Organic-cotton tote bags with the edition screen-print and the sponsor's tagline, 500 ml thermal bottles engraved with Basque motifs, pocket fans for the Kursaal queues, conference-week lanyards with metal clip, and corporate folders with notebook + pen for the specialised press — 300 to 2,000 units depending on stand volume.
Compact branded power banks, USB hubs for the press booth, foldable wireless chargers for the exhibition-area welcome team, premium notebook + metal-pen sets for parallel-programming delegates and food-press journalists — 50–150 premium units per edition.
Hard-cover premium notebooks stamped with the sponsor's seal, personalised kitchen-knife sets with laser engraving, limited editions of gourmet oil or salt with bilingual packaging, and named delivery to the speaker's hotel or the Kursaal backstage.
The brand operation at San Sebastián Gastronomika is usually coordinated between Madrid and Donostia: the Madrid production hub handles the entire order and delivers by road to the named consignee — sponsor's office, reference hotel in the centre or in Gros, the Grupal Events office, or the Kursaal itself. The usual delivery window is 24–48 hours with prior appointment, since the congress runs in early October and Donostia's port-side areas have morning and night freight restrictions.
We keep reserved stock at the Madrid hub for the recurring items — tees, tote bags and lanyards with generic artwork — that we can produce and ship in 7–10 working days. For pieces with personalised embroidery (sponsor's monogram, limited-edition number) the window moves to 12–14 working days. For sponsors with bespoke hospitality pieces (gift boxes, numbered knife or oil sets) we recommend closing the order 4–5 weeks before the Kursaal build-up.
The B2B invoice is issued in EUR with 21% VAT added via FACe / SII (AEAT); for intra-EU clients with a valid VIES number reverse-charge applies without Spanish VAT; for UK and non-EU clients the invoice is issued without VAT citing the corresponding EU directive article. Every delivery is confirmed with a signed delivery note on arrival and, when the client requests it, with a photo of the unloaded material at the exhibition area.
For high-volume batches we run industrial shrink-wrap options that reduce unloading time on arrival, which matters when the consignee is a hotel, a fairground caseta or a municipal warehouse receiving the material on the build-up day itself. On minimum order quantities, polos and tote bags start at 50 units with single-colour screen-print; eco bottles and premium notebooks need a 100-unit minimum to keep marking consistency; gift boxes and numbered sets need a 25–30-unit minimum, enough to cover the sponsor hospitality set and the visiting-speaker kits. For intra-EU destinations with a valid VIES number the document is issued without Spanish VAT via reverse-charge; for UK and extra-EU destinations the invoice is issued without VAT citing the relevant EU directive article, and the shipment is processed with an export DUA when the batch exceeds the declared threshold.
One part of the operation we handle with particular care is the post-event traceability: at the end of each edition we hand the sponsor a photo of the unloaded material at the named consignee, a delivery note signed by the receiver and, on request, a short report with units delivered per recipient and the pieces that returned to Madrid due to surplus or a date change. This traceability lets the sponsorship team close the merch ROI with the same rigour as the stand ROI, and it leaves a clean record for the internal audit and the next sponsorship-budget justification.
For sponsors that operate a multi-event calendar across Spain — gastronomy congress, wine week, regional fair, tourism summit, cultural festival — we keep a year-round reserved stock of polos, tote bags and lanyards with neutral motifs that can be re-personalised with a new monogram per event, reducing the lead time from 12–14 working days down to 5–7 working days for repeat orders. This rolling-stock model is particularly useful for sponsorship teams with several Spain editions in the year and for the cross-country packs that combine the Madrid and Barcelona scenes in the same season. On the supplier side we run a continuous audit of raw-material partners (cotton, cork, ceramic, paper) and prefer GOTS-, FSC- and PEFC-certified sources so that short lead times never cancel out the long ethics of the materials.
Historically the first or second week of October at the Palacio de Congresos y Auditorio Kursaal in Donostia-San Sebastián. Exact dates for each edition are confirmed in the San Sebastián Turismo agenda and on the official congress site.
Yes, to a named consignee: sponsor's office, reference hotel in the centre or in Gros, Grupal Events office, or the Kursaal itself. For sponsors with multiple recipients we consolidate to a single hub address and the client's internal team distributes.
21% VAT via FACe / SII (AEAT). For intra-EU clients with a valid VIES number reverse-charge applies without Spanish VAT; for UK and non-EU clients the invoice is issued without VAT citing the corresponding EU directive article.
No. Corp-Merch is an independent external supplier that helps sponsoring companies, brand activators and delegations prepare their own merch for the congress. It does not organise, sponsor or represent San Sebastián Gastronomika, Grupal Events or the Kursaal congress palace.
Corp-Merch is an independent external supplier for companies that take part in San Sebastián Gastronomika. This page helps those teams prepare their own merch for the congress; it does not represent San Sebastián Gastronomika, Grupal Events, the Kursaal congress palace or the Gipuzkoa Provincial Council.