Celonis Celosphere 2023 has been awarded a prestigious Silver Drum Award in Spatial Design for the innovative transformation of a vacant hangar on a live runway at the Munich Airport into a breathtaking venue for Celonis' annual user conference. Congratulations to the entire team at Celonis and EMP that worked on this groundbreaking event. This project is one of three that EMP was shortlisted by The Drum Awards for in 2024. We are honored to be included in this elite awards program recognizing the best work, people, and companies in global marketing.
At the heart of the Celonis brand is the belief that their software is “different” – it’s “unsoftware” and their events approach is to create events unlike any in the tech industry. This is what led them to host their 2023 user conference in an empty airplane hangar on the runway of the Munich Airport.
At Celosphere 2023, the mission was to:
- Bring 3,000 customers and partners together to foster advocacy, community, and education
- Launch their biggest product innovation ever, the AI-powered “Process Intelligence Graph”
- Support the closing of the year’s largest sales opportunities and generate new opportunities
While the empty airplane hangar on a live runway was the perfect blank canvas for build an anti-conference experience from the ground up, it presented massive logistical challenges and the opportunity for EMP to creative innovative solutions, including:
- The hangar had insufficient electrical power, no wifi, no restrooms, no A/V, and no pre-built structures. Everything had to be brought in and built, on a very tight budget and even tighter timeline. Over the course of just few weeks, the hangar construction included a two-story steel structure with 30+ session and meeting rooms, a large expo area for exhibitor booths and interactive experiences, and a massive 3,000-person keynote theater.
- Bringing the Celonis brand to life in the hangar: The hangar was essentially a giant glass box. The sun that poured into the space was beautiful and uplifting, but also required significant adaption to promote screen visibility. The team leaned into clean, white edges for the construction; sheer curtains that tempered the sunlight; and lots of live plants to add a fresh, green feel.
- Security and safety: Holding the event on airport property on an active runway was no easy feat. It required close collaboration with government authorities for months leading up to the event. To avoid attendees having to go through a security screening, special authorization to temporarily remove the hangar from the regular airport security zone was required.
- Sponsorship revenue: To meet increased revenue goals for the event, exciting new sponsorship opportunities were created, including a two-level booth with private meeting rooms and presentation areas, hosted dinners at iconic Munich locations like Allianz Arena, and unique airport branding opportunities.
Services Provided
Experiential design, 360o project management of hangar build out, sponsorship sales and ancillary event planning.
Event type
Proprietary user conference
Size
3,000 attendees
Venue
Munich Airport, Munich, Germany