Let loose with the Burghers

The German city Hamburg is the country’s second largest, home to the second largest European port after Rotterdam. Centrally located in Europe, the city is simple to reach and presents a comprehensive offering for MICE event organisers. Germany’s first ever conference centre was opened on 14 April 1973 in the form of the Congress Center Hamburg. The venue hosts major events as well as concerts and cultural events. Its inner-city location, within walking distance of the trade fair centre and downtown area, is rare. It’s also only a few steps from the Dammtor train station, so visitors arriving on ICE trains can literally be dropped door-to-door, while those coming by car can take advantage of the spacious underground car park, offering bays for 900 cars. But before you drive, you have to arrive. Hamburg Airport is a fairly modern airport served by two terminals. Known in German as Flughafen Hamburg, it sits eight kilometres from the city centre and provides service to more than 125 destination airports, including some long distance destinations like New Jersey on United Airlines, Dubai on Emirates, and Tehran on Iran Air. Lufthansa is the hub carrier, with the most flights, followed by Air Berlin, others include Germanwings, Condor, TUIfly and easyJet. From here, the S-Bahn (suburban rail network) line S1 operates every 10 minutes between Hamburg Airport and Hamburg’s central railway station, Hauptbahnhof, a journey of only 25 minutes. Once there, you’ll need to find a place to stay. Hotels such as the Mövenpick Hotel Hamburg offer a combination of colour and convenience for the city’s visitors. Notably built into a former water tower, the four-star hotel is located in the Sternschanzenpark area, offering 226 rooms, a Mövenpick Hotel Restaurant and the lifestyle bar ‘Cave’, in addition to 15 conference and meeting rooms. The hotel’s location in Sternschanze is ideal for business travellers. The metro is 100 yards away and for those attending larger events, the fairgrounds and Congress Centre Hamburg are all within walking distance. Upon arriving at the hotel I was then whisked away to the Nord Event Panoramadeck. There I met up with the rest of my party who were there to find out what Hamburg has to offer in terms of conference and meeting space. We met with the various representatives of Hamburg Convention Bureau, along with representatives from the partner hotels who each presented a short overview of their MICE offering. The Nord Event Panoramadeck event space is located in the EMPORIO – the former Unilever building – and covers 2,000sqm offering one of the highest event venues in the city. Besides a large conference room and bistro on the ground floor the main attraction is the large open space on the 23rd floor offering a 360-degree panoramic view of Alster and the city. The venue offers space for a range of events including meetings, conferences, workshops, press conferences, gala dinners and so on. After a short tour of the city we were then taken to Alster Canals and the Alster Lake – for a bit of exercise which came a shock to some. Our tour guide, Dr Tomas Kaiser, joined us for the trip and was to stay with us for all three days we were there. Kaiser is one of Hamburg’s finest tour guides and demonstrated an impressive knowledge of the city. Upon arriving at the Alster Lake we were divided into groups of five and allocated a canoe. We then set out through the canals – a lesser-known but defining characteristic of the city – to the main part of the lake and back through the canals to our starting position. A good 30 to 40 minutes canoeing was a good bit of fun and a great team building exercise. That night we were taken to the Reeperbahn, the infamous street in Hamburg’s St Pauli district, a hub of nightlife in one of Hamburg’s most popular tourist destination, also the city’s red-light district. We had dinner at the Hamborger Veermaster, a traditional German restaurant serving Hamburg cuisine and local German music, all set within a nautical atmosphere. The following day we all had an early start, visiting the famous Hamburg Fischmarkt (fish market) on the waterfront. After a night out on the Reeperbahn, locals would stagger down to the Fishmarkt and continue to party, where live music and food was served from the early morning, and presented a quite a memorable part of the Hamburg experience for any tourist. A city within a city HafenCity is currently Europe’s largest inner-city development project. Fifty-six projects are complete with another 49 under construction or in the planning stage. Almost 1,500 living spaces have been completed and more than 450 companies have moved into the area. We visited HafenCity to see the impressive Elbphilharmonie – the focal point of our tour. This new concert hall was still under construction so we donned our rubber boots and hard hats for the walk around the venue. An impressive 157 hectare venue that can be seen from many view points around the city, the Elbphilharmonie takes its name from its position on the waterfront of the river Elbe on the western tip of the Hafen-City. The glass structure is built upon a former warehouse known as the Kaispeicher A and rises to a height of 110 metres. The heart of the Elbphilharmonie is the Grand Hall – a world-class concert hall with seating for 2,100 guests and a height of 50 metres. Two smaller concert halls can be found in the Elbphilharmonie along with a Westin Hotel. Construction was interrupted in 2008 by disputes between the developer and the building contractor. In 2013 the City of Hamburg approved a new organisation of the project that guarantees completion of the whole building by the end of 2016. We then made our way to the Cap San Diego, which claims to be the largest museum cargo ship in the world, now forming part of the Hamburg harbour panorama and a pleasant alternative space to hold events. Strandperle, another promising venue on the beach was then followed by the fantastic Lutter & Wegner – a traditional wine house that opened in 2006. Located directly at Hamburg’s harbour, the restaurant has a view of the Elbe and the Port of Hamburg, and provides just one more reason to consider this wonderful city for a wide range of future MICE events. Any comments? Email Zoe Vernor