MARCH | REVIEW
Slight change
of plan…
When COP25’s Chilean leg
was cancelled with 18 days
notice, event organisers had to
mastermind a total rethink, and
GL events were pivotal in the
event’s turnaround, Access learns
‘P
olitical unrest’ is always
paramount in the list of crises
that can stop an event in its
tracks. And, when a small rise in public
transportation costs represented a
breaking point for tensions in Chile, its
President Sebastián Piñera announced
on 30 October 2019 that his country
was cancelling the 25th annual United
Nations climate conference as protests
escalated into violence and mayhem.
The event, known as the Conference
of the Parties or COP 25, was scheduled
to be held in the capital Santiago from
2-13 December, and its cancellation
came as quite the shock. “I was in
Santiago, on site in the Los Cerillos
venue, when we received the news
that the COP was cancelled,” Maxime
Rosenwald, managing director for
COP25 for GL events, tells Access. “It
was like we were stopped in full flight.
It took me a few moments literally
to process what I had just heard. We
thought ‘What do we do now? Basically,
what happens next?’”
The UN acted quickly, and set about
finding alternative host cities as the
panic set in. Laura Lopez, director,
Conference Affairs Services, UNFCCC
tells Access: “We realised quickly that
there was no time to waste. So we
just jumped and acted, because it was
12
literally putting 18 months of work
into 18 days. Early on we immediately
took stock of what had been done in
Chile and how much of that could be
lifted and brought over to Spain. It’s
kind of a cliché, but teamwork should
not be underrated in this. We all pulled
together to do something that we didn’t
think we could do.”
Rosenwald continues: “At the very
start, we didn’t have any details. We
heard that a few countries had offered
to host COP but it was all a bit hazy.
When we heard that it would be hosted
by Madrid, and with the same dates, we
were doubtful – extremely doubtful.
We are capable of many things, but
the magnitude of this challenge made
us very apprehensive. We had been
involved from the start, defining
the technical solutions, and we were
working with 80 delegations, as clients,
to deliver their spaces. We couldn’t let
them down. There was no other option
– we had to be in Madrid.”
For GL events, this presented one of
its greatest challenges to date. Florian
Bernard, GL events’s project director
for COP 25, takes up the story: “The
challenges were absolutely unique in
terms of timescale, the scale of project,
its logistical challenges, and crucially in
terms of communication and diplomacy.
Maintaining close relationships with
the Government in Chile and the
United Nations, our primary client,
was important; also maintaining the
good faith of our secondary clients –
the governments and agencies of 80
countries around the globe who were
attending the event and were relying
on GL events to deliver their delegation
infrastructure.
“We forged a new relationship of trust
with IFEMA in Madrid in just a few
weeks, and perhaps most importantly,
continued to motivate the 200-strong
production team which would now be
spread across Santiago and Madrid – a
team which had spent five months
building an event in Chile, only for the
event to be cancelled.”
GL quickly set about finding the right
suppliers in Europe to build the newly
designed delegation pavilions and
offices in Madrid within a two-week
window. It moved key members of its
delivery taskforce to Madrid, and found
additional AV specialists in Europe to
join the taskforce. “At this late stage,
a big challenge was to integrate them
and bring them up to speed. Then there
was the physical logistical challenge
of transporting AV infrastructure and
equipment from Santiago to Madrid.”
GL puts the success of its delivery
down to the strict methodologies it
follows, which led to achievement
at every stage. “Needless to say, GL
events’ delivery of events of this
scale and profile require exceptional
professionalism and expertise. What
enabled GL events to deliver the
unimaginable in 2019, however, is a
combination of factors which typify
our approach and set us apart in the
global events market,” Scott Jameson,
managing director of GL events UK
adds.
Rosenwald reflects on the hectic
timeline of the event’s logistics that
GL managed to fit into immediately
after Chile’s cancellation: “Some
team members left for Madrid on the
UN’s invitation. In those few days, we
conducted negotiations that would
“It was literally
putting 18
months of work
into 18 days.”