The “Performance” is the word-wide customer event of software company Cognos, which has been part of the IBM group since 2007. In Germany, the “Performance” receives more than 800 guests every year. commotion’s job: Project and coordination and direction of the conference with keynote and break-outs as well as the conception and production of the evening show event.
The goal of the event: To offer participants, following an extensive conference program with up to 85 lectures, a platform for networking and to strikingly re-enact the overall theme of the event. Whether gala, party or avant-garde style stage-performance, commotion continuously ensured from 2004 to 2012 the successful live communication of an innovative company’s self-concept, and, in doing so, offered an unusual activity for maintaining customer loyalty.
 

Welcome to the Photokina playground: Thousands of cameras, pushing and shoving around the stands. Right in the middle, Canon with its new EOS 400D-camera. Client dentsu Inc. had awarded Peter Zobel  (zobel: film stage concept) the job of offering visitors a new form of trade fair communication and a new product experience. Instead of creating a themed setting as a shooting terrain, interested visitors were invited to what the newspaper “Kölner Stadtanzeiger” referred to as a “photo-safari into the Cologne wilderness”. For whoever had expected to be taken to Cologne Cathedral had to think again. Instead the group was transported to a defunct industrial site; a true playground for photographers of all ages. At this exhibition and B-to-C event, commotion was Peter Zobel’s partner and ensured the smooth running of this interactive product launch.

For BÄKO, the leading purchasing cooperative of bakeries and pastry shops, commotion demonstrated its expertise regarding anniversary celebrations and in doing so showed the sustainability of the cooperative. The concept of the production for the one-day anniversary celebration was based on the symbol of a rope. A rope can carry weight that a single thread could never bear.
The idea behind the cooperative was thus projected by means of a memorable metaphor: Together we can reach our goals quicker and more accurately. And if several ropes are tied together to make a net, a new image emerges that further highlights the networking approach of a cooperative. As well as the conceptual idea for the anniversary celebration, the commotion team took care of artistic direction, media production and the overall direction and coordination of the event.

In the end of 2017 commotion designed and realised the annual customer conference “BMC Exchange” for the US-American software group BMC: 600 customers experienced the brand, the company and the product offering with the motto “Digitale Disruption - Schicht im analogen Schacht” up close.
The colliery Zollverein with its machinery was staged as a metaphoric turning point for the economic changes.
The daily agenda offered visionary keynotes, profound lectures, live demos and best practice examples. Meanwhile the guests were able to visit the trade exhibition hosted by BMC partners to network.
In the evening the atmosphere neatly changed: differently themed guided tours took the participants around the colliery terrain and told stories of the once most fashionable and largest colliery in the world. After the sun set the industrial area of the Grand Hall Zollverein transformed to a laid-back street food market, where the guest let the evening end in a smooth atmosphere with a local crafted beer.