Willemijn de Vet explains why the Beurs van Berlage believes in sustainability: “We mainly organise multi-day, international conferences. The flights and trash of these events alone result in a large carbon footprint. Pre-covid, we already looked into ways to improve our sustainability – where did we stand as far as Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) went? Several taskforces were set up and our employees were actively engaged in the subject, which resulted in many ideas and plans. These initiatives ground to a halt when covid broke out, but we picked it up afterwards. As it turned out, small sustainability projects already existed throughout the entire organisation. They were just never written down.” These separate initiatives had to be centralised. After all, sustainability is teamwork.

Green Globe certificate

To further shape our sustainability policy, the Beurs looked into sustainability certification. This led us to the Green Globe Standard, international certification for the travel and tourism industry. “That trajectory provided us a framework to evaluate and improve with. For instance, we were asked how we handled our trash, and what kind of electricity we used. It resulted in a list of things we did right and aspects to improve upon. In many areas we were already heading into the right direction. Many people believe you can’t take certain initiatives when you have an historic building, such as installing double-paned windows or solar panels. But there are still a lot of green options left. Ultimately, it’s already sustainable to use a century-old building and giving it the right to exist.” Eventually the Beurs was successfully certified, making it the first Dutch conference centre with a Green Globe certificate.

Greener each day

This trajectory also led to the continuously improved CSR policy. “We pondered which aspects of sustainability should be part of our DNA, to form the foundation of our green policy. One of the main pillars: we are not just throwing out everything non-sustainable. For instance, some parts of the building still don’t have LED lights, and we only replace them with sustainable lights when they’re broken. Furthermore, taking green initiatives often means working closely with Monument Conservation. We cannot just add double-paned windows since it changes the outlook of the building. But we can work together to choose a sustainable window that looks the same.”

Smart air circulation

The Beurs actively invests in innovations, such as ventilation. As summer passed, a lot of warmth stayed inside the building – couldn’t that be used for cold winter days? De Vet: “We set up pumps that keep hot air inside throughout winter. When it’s too cold in one room and hot in another, the system will fix that. The same thing happens in summer, only with cold air. Now we don’t need air conditioning and we consume less gas in winter. At the same time the system circulates fresh air – we don’t pump around ‘used’ oxygen. This has been a huge investment, especially for a historic building, but fortunately it was possible.”

Improving sustainability with suppliers and customers

You can’t be sustainable alone. The Beurs is depending on many partners and suppliers, such as our catering service. “Currently, we achieved a seventy percent garbage reduction in our kitchens, but there is still a lot of residual waste. For that reason, we actively ask our suppliers to reconsider their packaging materials. Could fish be delivered without the plastic wrapping? Could the coffee cups be made of renewable paper? Our partners responded positively to this, and all signed our sustainable selling policy. They agreed to inform us about environment-friendly alternatives, to align with our green objectives. Additionally, we advise our customers on how to organise sustainable events. Are there any green alternatives for the plastic name plates they’re requesting, for example? The Green Globe certificate was just the beginning – now we’re taking it to the next level.”

Would you like to know more about sustainability at the Beurs van Berlage? Download our infographic! 

Choose a building with ambiance

A good conference has a program filled with inspiring talks and workshops, but it’s of course also the perfect opportunity to meet new people. That wasn’t so easy online. Conversations will go even more smoothly when you are in a conference centre with the right ambiance. Did you pick a building with a rich history? You’ll notice that’s a great topic for discussion itself; it could even be a good icebreaker. This way, a good ambiance establishes a bigger and more direct feeling of togetherness.

Make the city an integral part of the experience

A total experience doesn’t start the moment you arrive at your conference location, but earlier. Choosing the right city contributes strongly to an unforgettable event. The prospect of the trip itself leads to anticipation – voorpret, as we would say in Dutch: fun in advance – especially when you invite guests from abroad. Wouldn’t it be nice to combine the conference with a great city trip, for example? A congress in Amsterdam is a nice opportunity to finally visit the Rijksmuseum or the Van Gogh Museum. Or you can show your visitors the business centre of the Netherlands: the Zuidas.

Call in an expert

If you want to be sure of a magnificent business event, call in an expert. An excellent conference centre doesn’t only host your event, but also helps you to create a compelling programme. The Beurs van Berlage loves to get in touch with you. We have years of experience in organising conferences, meetings and other (business) events, so we know exactly what we have to pay attention to. Based on your wishes and needs, we’ll prepare a complete package: from the catering menu, to booking nearby hotels. All of these elements – as well as an enthusiastic audience of course – will create an unforgettable experience for your guests.

Would you like to know more? Download our infographic “Conference as a Service”.

To guarantee the success of your event, you don’t want to leave anything to chance. The Beurs van Berlage provides you with a well thought out plan B, so that your event can proceed without any worries.

In this blog, we discuss the five most important parts of this plan. We think of everything, so that you only have to focus on the organisation of your event.

1. Two fibre optic lines
   An internet connection is the lifeline during an event. If the connection is lost, online  participants can no longer take part and you will miss out on many visitors. For this reason the Beurs van Berlage has two stable fibre optic lines. If one of these connections fails, then everything is seamlessly switched across to a different line. You have no need to worry about the connection.

2. Alternative equipment available
   Along with a stable internet connection and a correctly working platform, audiovisual equipment (AV) is also of crucial importance during a hybrid event. The failure of an LED screen, microphone or overhead projector leads to annoying situations. The Beurs van Berlage has alternative equipment in house, so that you can transfer to a new installation within an hour. That provides greater assurance.

3. Fast replacement of personnel or suppliers
   Personnel remains an important part of your event, also during a hybrid event. What happens if some of the employees suddenly have to go into quarantine? To address this challenge, we work with various agencies, that can quickly provide a replacement team. We are never dependent on one party. This also applies also for the suppliers with which we work.

4. What happens if your speaker cannot come?
   It happens that a speaker or presenter is suddenly not available, for example, because he is not allowed to travel. The Beurs van Berlage makes use of advanced technology, by which a hologram of the speaker is projected onto the stage. This enables the speaker to connect remotely, so that a keynote or session can still take place.

5. A back-up for the online platform
   The online platform provides an important base during an online event: your online participants watch the live streams and enter into interaction via the online platform. But what if that platform, for whatever reason, is not accessible? In that case we provide an alternative. All online participants are sent a new link, so that they can immediately continue watching via a different environment.

6. Quickly switch from a live event to a hybrid or online event
   The Beurs van Berlage has a plan B for all the technical challenges confronting your event and offers maximum flexibility. Was your event going to take place completely live, but due to circumstances this is no longer possible? Then we can switch over, in no time at all, to a hybrid or completely online event. In this way, your event can still take place.

Well-functioning IT is indispensable during a successful event. Live streams, live polls, TV broadcasts, live connections, cloud solutions, paperless registration modules, zoom meetings, production office, speaker-ready rooms, separate event networks; it demands a humongous effort from an IT infrastructure. With the ultra-modern IT infrastructure and the installation of Wi-Fi 6, the Beurs van Berlage is not only fully prepared for the digital events of the future, but is also at the forefront with her IT-infrastructure.

In recent months, while it has been deafeningly quiet in the event world, IT partner H&S Computer Services has been quite busy instead. The old Beurs van Berlage IT infrastructure was scrutinised and critically examined how we could make it future-proof in an increasingly digital world. The result is more than 6 kilometres of shielded cabling, 100 managed Wi-Fi 6 access points, very powerful routers, firewall and switches, and a flexible bandwidth of 1.5Gb to 10GB that can be used flexibly. Switches and routers are the backbone of the network. They are continuously monitored and configurations can be made remotely or locally.

In addition to the existing fibre optic internet connection, a second fibre optic connection was realised. The Beurs van Berlage has chosen to enter into a partnership with two independent fibre optic parties, each with their own specialism, so that risks are spread, speed is optimised and the event organiser can be offered a high level of operational reliability.

Part of the fibre can also be configured for live TV or radio broadcasts. A direct connection to the Media Gateway and Master Control room (live TV switching centre) in Hilversum is possible. A live TV broadcast in another country or continent or live streaming to (a) YouTube (channel) are also possible.

Wi-Fi 6 is the latest Wi-Fi standard. The handling of data is at least 4 times better than that of Wi-Fi 5. In general, this does not immediately lead to faster internet, but it does ensure a faster and more stable connection within the network. Setting up and connecting a separate network has always been possible in the Beurs van Berlage, but the high speed within this network is new. Does a speaker want to make last-minute changes to their presentation during your event? This can be done in our speaker-ready room, after which the presentation can easily be sent to the stage by means of a direct connection. Is your speaker in America and is he presenting via a live stream? Then he can easily upload the presentation to the separate cloud server, allowing him to make last-minute adjustments to his presentation.

The new wireless technology of Wi-Fi 6 also provides better Wi-Fi coverage, which is not entirely unimportant during events in a building of more than 170,000 ft². These wireless facilities can handle large numbers of users at the same time. In addition, it's nice to know that Wi-Fi 6 is getting better and better as time goes by, as more and more devices, such as mobile phones, fully support Wi-Fi 6.

But not everything has to be over the internet. Suppose you are organising a medical conference and you want to show live images of an operation during the conference. Here, details and ultra-sharp images without delay are important. This could be done via the internet, but there is a risk of delay there. In this case we can define a direct route to the hospital in question via a direct glass route.

In short, with our state-of-the-art IT infrastructure and the installation of Wi-Fi 6, the future of IT is already available today in the Beurs van Berlage. If you are curious about the technical details of our IT infrastructure, download our info sheet.