Kia at Milan Design Week 2026
Italy – Milan
Ground operation for Kia's "Journey of Projection" EV concept car exhibition at Salone dei Tessuti
PBM Europe ran the ground operation for Kia at Milan Design Week 2026: the docents at each concept car, the visitor flow from the street queue to the exit, the six-vehicle shuttle linking Salone dei Tessuti with Museo della Permanente, the hospitality layer and the materials behind it, from build-up on 15 April to strike on the 27th.
The exhibition showed six EV concept cars — EV2, EV3, EV4, EV5, EV9 and the Vision Meta Turismo, in its first public showing — over seven show days, with a Korean brief, an Italian team and PBM Europe as the single local partner in between.
Project facts
Client / Brand: Kia
Event: Milan Design Week 2026 "Journey of Projection", Kia Design Exhibition of EV vision
Location: Salone dei Tessuti, Milan, Italy · second venue Museo della Permanente
Dates: 20–26 April 2026 · build-up and training 15–19 April · strike 27 April
Format: Two media days, one mixed day and four public days
Team on site: 42 people per show day on average; 55 people deployed over 392 working days
PBM Europe scope: Docents and docent training, team leaders and floor staff, visitor flow, EV shuttle drivers and vehicle logistics, VIP and staff room furniture, catering support, signage and POP, operations equipment and consumables, Italian contracting, permits and onsite management.
The Challenge
Journey of Projection was not a trade-show stand. It was a sequenced exhibition in a historic Milanese venue: a welcome briefing, then six concept cars each in its own room, with groups of ten moving through and never more than thirty people inside at once.
That rhythm had to hold through two media days with press and content teams, a mixed day, and four public days at the busiest week of the year in Milan, when suppliers, parking and furniture are at capacity and municipal rules leave no margin.
Two venues added a second layer. Guests moved between Salone dei Tessuti and Museo della Permanente on a fleet of six Kia vehicles that had to run every ten minutes, and be charged, parked and clean again by the next morning.
PBM Europe’s Role
PBM Europe was the local operating partner for the exhibition in Milan.
We recruited and trained the fourteen docents, staffed the team leaders and the fourteen daily floor positions, provided the shuttle drivers and ran the vehicle logistics, furnished the VIP, interview and staff rooms, produced the local signage, sourced the operations equipment and consumables, and ran the operations office with daily briefings, attendance and reporting.
The work started four months before the doors opened. We answered the client's RFQ in December, priced the operation in January and March, inspected the venue in March, and signed with every local supplier under Italian law. We recruited the fourteen docents from Milan's design and fine-arts schools, translated the client's scripts into Italian and Spanish for their training, wrote a driver manual and a charging plan for the shuttle fleet, applied for the permit for the shuttle stop and prepared the documentation Kia Italia needed under the new NCC rules.
On site, we staffed the team leaders and the fourteen daily floor positions, provided the shuttle drivers and ran the vehicle logistics, furnished the VIP, interview and staff rooms, produced the local signage, sourced the operations equipment and consumables, and ran the operations office with daily briefings, attendance and reporting. Both directors were in Milan from 13 to 29 April.
Docents and talent
Fourteen docents, two per position across the welcome briefing and the six concept cars, selected for their ability to hold a design conversation and trained on 17 and 18 April with a full rehearsal on the 19th. Relief docents were on call throughout the seven show days.
Visitor journey and floor staff
Six team leaders and fourteen daily floor positions covered the street queue, the courtyard, reception and information desk, vehicle care inside the hall, exit guidance and the shuttle boarding points at both venues. Groups of ten entered on a steady rhythm; a welcome docent opened each group before the vehicle positions.
Shuttle and EV logistics
Eight drivers rotated over six shuttle positions from 19 to 27 April, with collection and return at Kia's Milan facility. Three PV5 and three EV5 ran a ten-minute frequency between the two venues. PBM handled overnight parking on secured spaces, sequential charging, the detailing crew for the concept cars and the shuttle clean before day one.
Hospitality, furniture and catering
PBM supplied and installed the furniture for two VIP lounges, the interview room and the staff rooms: sofas, chairs, side tables, mirrors, garment racks, 23 partitions and 33 folding chairs, with express delivery, installation and dismantling by PBM crews. Catering support covered lunch boxes on both media days, water service and reception consumables.
Production, materials and procurement
Acting as the client's buyer in Milan, PBM produced the wayfinding flags, shuttle-stop signage and POP, six white covers concealing each concept car's power supply, and sourced 30 radios, 2 laptops, a multifunction printer, power distribution, 30 guide poles, 36 umbrellas, 8 first-aid kits, vehicle tools, jacks and wheel chocks.
Compliance and control
Every local supplier was contracted under Italian law, with deposits, penalties for no-shows and a signed completion record before the final payment. Docents, staff and drivers had their attendance and hours recorded per person and day. Scope changes requested after contracts were signed were priced and agreed in writing before being applied. An operations office ran morning briefings, break schedules and daily reporting to the client's team, with an operations vehicle on duty for twelve days and coordination in four working languages.
Key areas
The operation ran across the courtyard and street queue, the reception and information desk, the seven docent positions inside the hall, the VIP lounges and interview room, the staff rooms and operations office, and the shuttle points at Salone dei Tessuti and Museo della Permanente.
The docent positions carried the exhibition. Each docent needed to explain a concept car to a design audience in about four minutes, hand the group on and be ready for the next one, for eleven to twelve hours a day across seven days.
Results
PBM Europe delivered the ground operation for Kia's Journey of Projection from build-up to strike with one accountable team: 14 docents, 6 team leaders, 14 daily floor positions, 8 drivers on 6 vehicles, 5 set-up crew and a detailing crew, with 2 directors and 3 PBM staff managers on site.
Over the fourteen days of the operation, 55 people worked 392 recorded days and around 3,960 hours. Seven show days ran on the same team, the same fleet and the same control routine, with the peak on 19 April, when 48 people were on site for rehearsal and set-up.
The project confirmed PBM Europe's role for Korean agencies and global brands working in Italy: docents and talent, mobility and EV logistics, hospitality and local procurement, run under local rules by one partner.
when 48 people were on site for rehearsal and set-up. Between the first RFQ in December and the strike on 27 April, the scope changed several times, from the size of the fleet to the number of docent days; each change was priced, agreed and executed without a gap on the floor.
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