OMR Festival, Hamburg, Mai 2022

"The festival for the digital universe" – that is how OMR defines itself today. Launched eleven years ago as Online Marketing Rockstars, the 2022 edition once again attracted "international superstars of the digital scene, hidden industry champions and local heroes" to Messe Hamburg. The scope of over 700 speakers ranged from film director Quentin Tarantino to Porsche CEO Oliver Blume and from actor Ashton Kutcher through to Tina Müller, CEO of the Douglas Group. 500 enterprises used the two-day festival as an exhibition forum to present themselves to the attendees; there were also master class seminars and live concerts.

In Hall B4 we created the "50/50 stage" and provided the corresponding technical services. The "50/50 by OMR" initiative campaigns for more fairness and justice. The stage is a platform for discussing how a 50/50 representation of the sexes can be achieved in business, and above all in leading management positions in the digital industry.

We had just four days for the set-up, which included installing the entire truss system in the hall. We also installed all of the audio, lighting and video equipment as well as constructing the stage with a 40 m² LED wall in the middle. We used around 400 lights – moving lights, LED bars and floodlights as well as LED spots – to light up the stage and the entire auditorium with seating for 1,000 people.

Although this project presented tremendous challenges in terms of the required personnel and material, we still managed to complete it with top levels of quality and precision. The reason for the difficulties was acute bottlenecks in manpower and equipment at the time of the event following two years of the corona epidemic. In addition to the shortage of qualified personnel – which has severely affected the event industry for a number of years now – lockdowns, event bans and short-time wages have all played a part in forcing technicians to look for jobs in other fields. A further consequence was that disrupted supply chains prevented the restocking of equipment. However, our careful planning and wide-ranging network put us in a position to overcome such consequences.