- The Brief
London was the city of choice to host the most prestigious and important political occasion in the world - The London Summit. It brought together 20 heads of states from the world's most developed nations and several representatives of international financial institutions with the aim of restoring stability and stimulating economic growth across the globe.
- Objectives
The London Summit host venue needed to:
- Create a secure environment that would provide protection for 1,200 of the world's most high profile delegates and also provide a suitable platform for which business could be successfully conducted
- Accommodate changes to the event requirements throughout the planning process (4 month lead time), with ease
- Provide reliable and extensive media and communication facilities for the 2,500 members of global media in attendance
- Meet the stringent demands on the catering requirements
- Successfully showcase London and the rest of the UK to the attending delegates and the world via the unprecedented international media exposure
- Solution
With its track record in hosting large, complex events of VIP status, ExCeL London ticked all the boxes.
The four month lead time from the initial enquiry to the staging of this event meant that ExCeL London had to align itself closely with the creative agency WRG, who were chosen to manage this event.
The two teams worked closely to adapt the venue's space to meet the exacting and ever changing requirements of the event. This included adding a VIP breakfast meeting area within the venue's South Event Halls for over 150 delegates two weeks out from The Summit.
Occupying the whole of ExCeL London's South Event Halls - 32,500 sq m - the event was organised into three colour zones; blue, red and yellow. WRG enlisted Blackout to help create the various zones. The components for this constantly evolving project included 500 chain hoists, 3,200 metres of truss, 16,500 sq metres of black wool serge drape and almost 5,000 sq metres of white voile.
The Blue Zone housed the delegation, which incorporated all of the working staff of the world leaders and several representatives from international financial institutions including the European Commission and International Monetary Fund. In this area, ExCeL London constructed 32 individual delegation work offices with media facilities, a lounge area, helpdesk and provided catering for all members of the delegation in a dedicated lunch area.
The Red Zone housed the 20 world leaders and members of their most senior teams. This included a specially created lounge area where the leaders met, before conducting a working breakfast meeting in the dining area. This was followed by the G20's first plenary session held in a plenary area, also constructed by ExCeL London.
This area also contained a dedicated area for the leaders to stage a group photograph as well as individual dining areas for the Finance Ministers and dining and meeting facilities for the Sherpas.
In the Yellow Zone which housed the 2,500 attending members of the press, ExCeL London provided extensive communication and media facilities and round-the-clock technical support.
WRG installed a total of 8km of temporary cabling, 1,600 telephone lines and used a peak of 190Mbps internet bandwidth throughout the event.
ExCeL London's caterers Leith's built four satellite kitchens on the show floor and an additional one in the car park. The lunch menu Leith's prepared and delivered was designed by several of the business's executive chefs and celebrated British fare including English asparagus, Hereford beef, and Cornish Yarg, Oxford Blue and Kidderton Ash cheeses. To avoid any disruption, all catering staff worked in complete silence, wore special shoes and gloves during set-up and the operations manager had to wear slippers whilst serving in the main plenary room. Leith's provided over 4,500 cups of coffee and tea, 20,000 glasses of water, over 500 litres of home made soup and around 3,000 mints, in addition to over 3,500 sandwiches and wraps for the media. A staggering total of 8,000 meals were provided in just one day.
- Results
All of the teams at ExCeL London; from event management and catering through to operations and security worked together to fully demonstrate the flexibility of the venue and vast experience in delivering a logistically challenging global meeting which ran like clockwork. The event ultimately met its aim of delegates being able to effectively conduct high powered business - lof the world's largest economies reached an agreement to tackle the global financial crisis with measures worth $1.1 trillion (£681bn).
The estimated reach of the media coverage from The London Summit ran into billions (TV, radio, online, blogs, internet, national/international coverage), with coverage being read by an estimated 83% of the world's GDP.
Following the summit, the venue received an unprecedented influx of praise from its industry colleagues and even competitors from all around the globe, with a special endorsement from US President Barack Obama, who, in his closing speech thanked Gordon Brown for arranging such "fantastic conference facilities."
- Floorplan
