Newsletter 02/2020

^{26 May 2020}

Dear Customers, Partners and Friends of the CCB,

Midway through our main season, the activities of the event industry were brought to a halt practically overnight with the corona lockdown. For more than two months now, events with more than 100 people have been banned in Switzerland. The planning security that is of such eminent importance for our industry has disappeared.

We at the Congress Center Basel, however, have not lost our motivation or our innovativeness, despite the confined limits within which we are currently forced to operate. We have gained a great deal from the open discussions we have had with our customers over these past few weeks at a time of social distancing. And the fact that the vast majority of organisers have not cancelled their events but opted to postpone them constitutes an important basis for our work and serves as confirmation for us.

We are keeping a close eye on developments. With the large amount of space we have at our disposal, we are able to safely accommodate events that are subject to demanding access and floorspace requirements. Those events that are permitted are benefiting from this, and we are similarly offering solutions that comply with the restrictions which will no doubt be in force for quite some time still.

Together with you, we will emerge stronger from this crisis. We look forward to meeting you in person again soon.

Jonas Scharf, Managing Director CCB

Space galore for social distancing

In their search for spacious meeting premises, a number of cantonal parliaments found precisely what they were looking for at the Congress Center Basel and Messe Zürich. These are examples of additional uses – ones that will soon be possible for events involving up to 1000 participants once again.

SAP NOW is one of the most important customer events in the leading software manufacturer’s annual calendar. This March, the event was switched at short notice from the premises of the CCB to virtual reality.

The Sales & Marketing teams have joined forces: since the start of the year, sales at the exhibition locations of Basel and Zurich for “Messe Basel”, “Messe Zürich” and the “Congress Center Basel” have been handled by a single source.

Normally, the team at event caterer Wassermann & Company comes up against its limits in the spring. But the coronavirus has changed everything. The company is still on the move during the lockdown, however. A conversation with CEO Frank Wassermann.