Playmobil doesnot care Martin , sadly enough
all those meetings mostly are organized by private persons
Collectors like you and me
The advantage of Europe , despite the different languages , is the distances are shorter then in the states (I Know you live in England Martin

)
mostly all do-able by car
if you go dig in the meeting threats on the different fora you'll learn a lot on how those things are organized
We even had a few playmomeets in England
The only thing Playmobil ever did was the factoryvisits at Zindorf
and on the first one (wich I missed) where a lot of people from round the world
(that time there were only three fora (Spanish ,English and German)
but that also was an initiative from a Collector who had a good connection with the PR from playmobil (and she still has )
The beauty of those meetings is , you see more playmo then is good for you

you meet the people behind the avatar , Lot of members here and on any other forum (regarding playmo) I met in person
meeting in real still is different then on the net
I'm shure a few fellow members here will agree on that
The most interessant fairs
Wolfsburg Germany , THE biggest and must have seen fair in Germany
The weekend from 18 april 2009Luxoplaymodays Luxemburg , where Holland/France/Germany/Malta/Belgium.... meet
mostly end of August
Aras France mostly round Mai , never been there ,project for next year

Barcelona and Madrid
and there are a lot more ,
The bottom line is , all these events organized and payed by Collectors who each in their way contribute to these events to become true