Digital Benchmark Berlin
for EBG

Context

EBG (Electronic Business Group) is France's leading think-tank on digital innovation. 660 member companies, more than 110,000 active professionals. Beyond its Task Forces and monthly conferences, EBG runs several yearly events that bring together the European digital ecosystem.

I was the EBG's technical director for nine consecutive seasons, across their full event calendar: Digital Innovation, Digital Performances, Annual General Meeting, EBG 500 dinners, and the flagship series of three international editions of the Digital Benchmark: London in 2017, Barcelona in 2018, and Berlin from 22 to 24 May 2019 at the bcc Berlin Congress Center.

The Digital Benchmark Berlin gathered over 850 European digital decision-makers (CMOs, CDOs, Ecommerce Managers, Heads of Social Media, Innovation Directors) over three days of invitation-only event, with keynotes, international panels, dozens of workshops, one-to-one business meetings and two gala dinners.

My role: overall technical direction

On this event, I wasn't a camera operator or an isolated technician. I was the technical director, commissioned directly by EBG. My role covered the entire technical setup of the event: plenaries in the main hall, dozens of workshops spread across the secondary rooms, exhibition hall with partner booths, evenings and gala dinners, video filming and reportage.

I worked as a team with Alexis Drapier directing the reportage and interview unit, and with a local English-speaking technical company based in Berlin for the on-site equipment supply and operational interventions. Upstream logistics coordination was co-organised with the EBG project lead.

Constraints

• Premium European decision-maker audience: 850+ CMOs, CDOs, Ecommerce Managers from major international brands. The expected technical standards match those of a top-tier professional event, not a standard corporate convention. No room for slip-ups on the final quality.
• Multiple simultaneous spaces: plenaries, dozens of parallel workshops, exhibition hall, dining areas. Each space has its own technical constraints (sound, video, filming, projection) and its own schedule. Everything had to be orchestrated coherently.
• Cross-border logistics: transporting all the technical equipment from Paris to Berlin in a 20m³ truck, customs clearance coordination, rigorous logistics-chain planning.
• Working with a local English-speaking team: coordination in English with the German technical provider, aligning French and German technical cultures, integrating their local equipment with the kit we shipped from France.
• Premium format over three full days: no recovery window between sessions, technical setup under continuous load from Wednesday opening to Friday closing, plus the evenings.

The setup

The logistics of an event abroad

Getting a complete technical setup out of France to redeploy in Berlin isn't trivial. A 20m³ truck transported all the French equipment from Paris to the Berlin Congress Center. That logistics chain is prepared weeks in advance with the EBG project lead: equipment inventory, loading plans, customs clearance, arrival and return scheduling, backup-equipment forecast.

On this kind of event, logistics demands precise anticipation. Equipment shipping and on-site verification have to be perfectly secured to guarantee the quality of the event in front of 850 European decision-makers. Across three successive international editions (London, Barcelona, Berlin) and nine seasons at EBG in total, that upstream logistics work became a well-rehearsed routine.

Working as a technical director, not as an operator

My role as technical director on this event wasn't to operate a camera or a switcher. It was to orchestrate the technical skills needed across the full perimeter. Choosing the right equipment for each space, making sure the local team and the French team worked in sync, anticipating scheduling conflicts between simultaneous workshops, validating technical choices with the EBG project lead.

That's exactly the kind of role that justifies multi-edition collaboration. Once an institution like EBG has found a trusted technical director, capable of absorbing their requirements without them having to repeat them every year, they have no reason to look elsewhere. Multi-season loyalty is the most solid metric for evaluating premium B2B service quality.

How it ran

• Several months ahead: coordination with the EBG project lead, validation of the overall technical setup, room plans, needs inventory by space.
• Several days of site surveys: preliminary technical visits to the bcc Berlin Congress Center, validation of access and power supply, briefing of the local German technical company.
• Transport logistics: loading the 20m³ truck in Paris, transport to Berlin, validation on arrival, installation by space.
• One week on site: installation, tests, three-day event run (Wednesday 22 to Friday 24 May), de-rig, equipment return.

Results

• Three international editions of the Digital Benchmark managed in technical direction: London 2017, Barcelona 2018, Berlin 2019.
• Nine consecutive seasons of collaboration with EBG across the full event calendar.
• 850+ European decision-makers hosted on the Berlin edition without a major technical incident affecting the event.
• Zero logistical failure on the transport and France-Germany coordination.

What I take away

Running technical direction on an event like the Digital Benchmark means accepting permanent demand. EBG isn't speaking to a family or general audience. These are European digital decision-makers, many coming from the tech or media industry themselves, they spot a poorly calibrated technical setup within the first hour of the event. The bar is at maximum.

What stayed with me across these nine EBG seasons is less the one-off feats than the duration of the trust. Three international editions (London, Barcelona, Berlin), dozens of Digital Performances, Annual General Meetings and EBG 500 dinners, without ever needing to renegotiate the contract or redefine expectations. That kind of long-term relationship is what separates a one-off event service from a partner technical direction.

On events of this calibre, a technical director's role is rarely visible. If everything works, no one talks about it. That's exactly the goal. Successful technique is the kind that fades behind the content, behind the encounters, behind the experience the organiser wants to offer their audience. That's what I went looking for across these nine EBG seasons.