Exhibition World Issue 5 — 2019 | Page 69

Venue project “Shenzhen will be the No.1 economic city in China, possibly even in Asia in the medium to long term. The earlier you will be here the better it is for you.” Best practice Consultancy JWC, in the shape of CEO Jochen Witt and partner in JWC, Gerd Weber, share their unique insights with EW on the task of helping to realise the optimum exhibition configuration at Shenzhen World EW sat down in Shenzhen to hear the inside line from Jochen Witt, a former German Messe director and former UFI President, who explained how his small consultancy was hired to play a key role in Shenzhen government’s big project to construct the world’s largest indoor exhibition facility. Together with colleague Gerd Weber, Witt spent three years advising on the configuration of the new exhibition jewel in the Pearl River w w w.exhibitionworld.co.uk Delta crown and ensuring that the Chinese partners benefitted from the world’s best practice, while getting an authentic Chinese product fit for the Chinese and international markets. JWC explains how the contract came about. “Our first contact with the Shenzhen people was via workshops connected to a UFI Asia Chapter event in Hong Kong in 2015. The Shenzhen Government had invited industry experts from all over the world to do some workshops on venue planning,” Witt says. Following that first workshop delivered by Weber in March 2015, JWC sent a consultancy offer as a German company, but the feedback was that a small company with no Chinese office didn’t mean anything. “We were told to get in personal contact and invited a Shenzhen delegation to come to Cologne and also visit other cities in Europe. In Cologne we showed them our philosophy of venue planning as well as the upgrade of the venue we had both been responsible for. At Kolnmesse, we replaced 80,000sqm of space into new space fully integrated into venue. The Vice-Mayor of Shenzhen was really positive about that and asked us to come to a meeting in Shenzhen.” Was it initially to discuss modernising the existing Shenzhen exhibition facility? “No. They wanted to build a new one. The old one was limited in space in the downtown area. The traffic was impossible and they had to move the big show,” Witt explains. He adds that the local government had realised the existing centre was not up to date and capacity couldn’t serve growth of the tradeshows anymore. Below: Mr Mao Daben explains the Shenzhen World vision “The Chinese have a way of predicting demand. They are very good at that. Their predicted demand of 400,000sqm to 500,000sqm is remarkable with hindsight. The only question was, how big should the first phase be?” A driver for the maximum area was the Furniture Show which comes to Shenzhen in March 2020 and is now set to double in size to near on 300,000sqm in one step when it moves in to Shenzhen World. Normally JWC doesn’t participate in tenders, says Witt. “But, in this case, we knew what the government wanted. It was a tremendous effort. Lots of documents were needed – three boxes full, all stamped. We knew we were up against big venue competitors, mainly from Europe and all had offices in China. “We placed a lot of effort, therefore, into presentation and documentation. “Our top argument was that we were fully neutral – not organisers or venue operators, and anybody working with us could expect the best advice experts can give,” says Witt. “We didn’t discount on price.” The tender was decided in just two weeks. “They moved fast and committed,” recalls Witt. By March 2016, the first working meeting began for the team and Valode & Pistre architects from Paris were also on board, having been selected at the same time. The first recommendations delivered were on the layout and room programme, with challenges Issue 5 2019 69