We took the theme from No. 8: ACHTUNG! DANGEROUS IDEAS AT WORK literally within our team, since this time we moved into an old industrial complex, vacant for decades, inside the port district of Bremen. This derelict building offered us an enormous playground, which we all enjoyed using – and is was in fact near the redlight district in this old port district of Bremen. 

But I chose the topic for a very different reason, let me explain:

It was an extraordinary long preparation phase, as we didn’t use a modern exhibition hall anymore. For example: nearly the whole electric wiring – although once the powerhouse of the old port – needed to be replaced. Correspondingly, the atmosphere was mostly raw and improvised.

‘It‘s alright, if it doesn‘t catch fire.’ became our motto.

As a lighting designer, among other things, I designed the entrance hall with the counters for our guests. The omnipresent signal red, which I distributed abundantly, was more than adequate for the topic: on the first day of the conference, we had to get white desk lamps as quick as possible, so that the colleagues at the counters wouldn’t go mental at the end of the day.

In the next few days, I tried to avoid the entrance hall for understandable reasons. The mistake was, that during the build-up we had enough white work lights on the set and therefore no one thought about the fact, that a huge hall, flooded with pure red light is not the ideal workplace!