BDKV and INTHEGA join forces to improve efficiency in event venues

Hamburg/Ludwigsburg – Cultural events thrive on diversity, creativity and individual requirements. At the same time, the technical specifications of touring productions and guest performances regularly require a great deal of coordination between organisers, producers and venues. To significantly simplify this process in future, the BDKV (Federal Association of the Concert and Events Industry) and INTHEGA – the trade association for the touring theatre sector – have jointly developed the ‘Technical Recommendation on Venue Standards’.

The recommendation defines a practical set of basic technical requirements for venues with up to 800 or up to 2,500 seats. The aim is to cover as many of the requirements of modern cultural productions as possible at an early stage and thereby establish a uniform technical standard. “The diversity of cultural offerings is greater today than ever before. At the same time, many touring productions, concerts and shows have similar technical requirements. With this joint recommendation, we are providing practical guidance for venues, increasing cost-efficiency and facilitating collaboration between venues and productions. “We would like to thank INTHEGA for their collaborative partnership,” said Johannes Everke, Managing Director of the BDKV.

“A clearly defined venue standard provides planning certainty for all parties involved, reduces the effort required for coordination and helps to ensure that events are staged more efficiently whilst maintaining a consistently high standard of quality,” added INTHEGA’s Managing Director, Bernward Tuchmann.

The technical recommendation is tailored to the needs of small to medium-sized events and productions and can be flexibly scaled according to the size and focus of a venue. Furthermore, it provides local authorities and operators with a valuable basis for procurement and tendering processes.

With this joint initiative, BDKV and INTHEGA are sending a clear signal in favour of greater standardisation and future-proofing within the events industry. The guidelines are intended to help conserve resources, make investments more targeted and bring about a lasting improvement in collaboration between venues and touring productions.

The Technical Recommendations for Venue Standards were presented to the industry on Wednesday 1 July at the INTHEGA Congress in Bielefeld.

What is INTHEGA?

INTHEGA (Interessengemeinschaft der Städte mit Theatergastspielen e. V.) is the trade association for the touring theatre sector, representing more than 400 local authorities in German-speaking countries. Its members include towns, local authorities, associations and other institutions responsible for municipal cultural programmes, which draw on the offerings of touring theatre producers for this purpose. The association aims to support the work of organisers of touring productions and thereby promotes high-calibre, culturally engaging events, including in rural areas.

About the BDKV:

As an industry association, the BDKV is committed to a diverse concert and events sector. It brings together and represents the interests of concert, tour and festival organisers, artists’ agencies, venues and touring companies in dealings with the public and policymakers, both nationwide and beyond. With 300,000 events and more than 115 million tickets sold, the sector generates a total annual turnover of over six billion euros.