DuesseldorfCongress Veranstaltungs-GmbH can notch up 2006 as an important and successful milestone in the company’s history. This is the positive bottom line of the closing financial statement for 2006.

In addition to satisfactory business statistics, the event organisation company also successfully saw through a major project last year with commissioning of the new ISS DOME. The new multifunctional hall opened for business on September 2, 2006, since when it has already registered 370,000 visitors.
 
Having taken on management of the LTU arena at short notice in 2005 and launched the ISS DOME in 2006, DuesseldorfCongress has recently had to cope with a considerably heavier workload. As a result, annual sales at the company soared from EUR 14.9 million in 2005 to EUR 21.7 million a year later, representing a 45 percent increase. Net income for 2006 grew to EUR 292,142, up from EUR 211,727 in 2005. All told, last year DuesseldorfCongress registered 2,460 events and 1,473,000 visitors. The company’s venues were occupied on 321 days in 2006.

For Hilmar Guckert, Managing Director of DuesseldorfCongress, this is something to be very pleased about: “We succeeded in performing extremely well last year. DuesseldorfCongress Veranstaltungsgesellschaft was only set up at the end of 1994. At that time we were occupied solely with management of the CCD Congress Center Duesseldorf featuring capacities for 7,500 visitors. In 2006 – just twelve years later – we were in charge of no fewer than nine premises and can now accommodate a total of more than 120,000 people. That makes us the biggest venue provider in the whole of Germany.”

For 2007 – the ISS DOME’s first full year of operation – DuesseldorfCongress is expecting around two million visitors to its venues and a further increase in turnover. Managing Director Hilmar Guckert has pinpointed consolidation of the company’s business structures as the primary near-range objective: “We need to optimise all our day-to-day processes and intensify synergies between the various properties. For example, we will be working towards a uniformly structured internet presence and a coordinated marketing appearance by our ‘venue family’.”
 
Hilmar Guckert also perceives huge potential in the combinability of DuesseldorfCongress’s business and public facilities. “We offer nine extremely diverse venues on a one-stop-shopping basis. Organisers planning an event with us can benefit from this variety. Kicking off a professional convention or conference with a reception on the LTU arena football pitch, for instance, quickly transforms a run-of-the-mill gathering into a once-in-a-lifetime experience. Going forward, we are looking to introduce these exceptional opportunities more actively to our clients.”
The Managing Director considers the foundation firmly laid for sustained success in both conference and events business. Already on the CCD Congress Center Duesseldorf calendar of events through 2009 are such major conventions as the International Congress on Photobiology or the International Congress on Multiple Sclerosis Research. This year the centre is hosting, among others, the European congress on Nanotechnology in Industrial Applications, EuroNanoForum (June 19-21, 2007) and the award ceremony for Germany’s foremost media accolades, the BAMBI (November 29, 2007).
The three venues for the general public also promise an entertaining programme of events with such mega stars as Genesis, the Rolling Stones and The Police in the LTU arena, Pearl Jam, Mario Barth and Die Ärzte in the ISS DOME and Bryan Adams and Norah Jones in the PHILIPSHALLE. Sporting highlights in the second half of the year are the DFL football league cup and the Masters Football indoor championships, as well as the start of the new season for Fortuna Duesseldorf and the DEG METRO STARS.

Further information