G20 GERMANY 2017

On behalf of the German Foreign Office in Berlin, Guest-One took over the participant management and placement for the G20 concert within the framework of the summit meeting of the heads of state and government in Hamburg’s Elbphilharmonie. After the ceremonial opening at the beginning of the year, the Wuppertal experts for participant management and guest organisation were thus responsible for a particularly extraordinary event in the world’s most modern concert hall for the second time within a year.

In order for the politicians together with their delegations and the other guests to enjoy the Hamburg Philharmonic State Orchestra under conductor Kent Nagano playing Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony, Guest-One was required in advance. In order to ensure that everything ran smoothly, the Wuppertal experts had set up a complex system to register the 2,000 or so guests. The highly sensitive data of the so-called “bosses” and their escorts were imported into the online tool in advance. In order to comply with the protocol requirements, the experts for guest organisation had also graphically reproduced the seating plan of the Great Hall to facilitate the exact seating of the guests.

The G20 concert’s specifications were characterized by the highest security requirements. Thus, the specially secured web system ran with powerful encryption and complied with the restrictive requirements of the German Foreign Office and the German data protection guidelines. The security requirements on 7 July 2017, the day of the G20 concert, were no less demanding. Seamless checks like those at the airport have already been carried out at the Hamburg Cruise Center in HafenCity. There, the first part of a two-stage intake took place. Guest-One had set up ten stations especially for this purpose in order to accredit the approximately 1,500 regular guests. Equipped with seat tickets, the visitors then arrived by ship at the Elbphilharmonie, where the actual admission to the concert hall took place. The VIPs and delegations drove their vehicles directly into the security zone and were accredited by Guest-One directly in front of the Elbphilharmonie.

The high security requirements in connection with the large circle of participants and the fulfilment of the protocol requirements made this demanding project also for Guest-One a very special one.