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After decades of congresses, exhibitions and Denmark’s largest literature festival, Bella Center Copenhagen has found a fast-growing new source of energy: fitness and competitive sport. The venue now sees the segment as a new business vertical in its own right.
COPENHAGEN – When Bella Center Copenhagen opened in 1975, few would have imagined thousands of athletes doing burpees, lifting barbells and racing across its halls half a century later.
But that is increasingly what transformation looks like at the renowned Copenhagen venue.
Within a short period, Bella Center has welcomed three major fitness concepts: World Fitness Project, HYROX and ATHX Games. What initially looked like individual bookings is increasingly being treated as something bigger: an emerging fitness and sport vertical with long-term growth potential.
The first World Fitness Project Finals at Bella Center in December 2025 transformed Bella Arena into an international competition venue with a warm-up area, vendor village and live broadcast facilities. Around 4,500 spectators attended, while more than 700,000 viewers followed the action online.
In 2026, the momentum has continued with HYROX and the first Scandinavian edition of ATHX Games, while World Fitness Project returns for its 2026 Finals in December.
“We have reached the point where we no longer see fitness as a few exciting events that happen to fit our halls,” says Nicole Bellaiche, Director of Bella Presents at Bellagroup. “We see the beginnings of a new vertical. There is a strong community, ambitious international organizers, attractive audiences and significant potential for brands and commercial partners. Our job is to give those concepts room to grow.”
The development reflects a wider rethink of what a convention center can be. Bella Center has repositioned itself under the idea Designed to be redesigned: its spaces should adapt to an event’s ambitions rather than dictate what the event can become.
For more than three decades, Bella Center has hosted and developed Bogforum, Denmark’s major annual literature festival. In 2024, it launched Copenhagen Gaming Week with partners, creating a festival around gaming and digital culture that is now heading towards its fourth edition in 2027.
Fitness adds another dimension. These events combine many of the characteristics convention centers are built to handle: large participant flows, complex logistics, partner areas, hospitality, live production, spectators and international communities travelling around a shared passion.
“A venue should not just be the building an organizer moves into for three days,” Bellaiche says. “At our best, we are a platform they can build on. If a concept wants to bring in more participants, create new commercial areas, add partners, rethink the audience experience or grow internationally, we want the venue itself to enable that growth rather than limit it.”
That philosophy applies just as readily to an international association congress or global corporate event as it does to a fitness competition.
More than fifty years after opening its doors, Bella Center Copenhagen is still a convention center. It just happens to be one where the furniture is occasionally replaced by a few thousand barbells.
Meet Bella Center at IMEX America 2026: The Nordics/Scandinavia, Bayside/E1508
About Bella Center Copenhagen:
Bella Center Copenhagen is one of Scandinavia’s largest and most flexible congress and event venues and part of Bellagroup, one of Denmark’s leading hospitality companies. The venue hosts international congresses, corporate events, exhibitions, festivals and live experiences and is B Corp certified.
