With ANGA COM 2017 around the corner, time to catch up again with Dr. Peter Charissé, managing director ANGA COM, about the current status of this year’s event, which will be held from Tuesday, May 30 till Thursday, June 1, in Cologne, Germany.
This year, ANGA COM will move to a new venue in the Cologne Messe, can you explain the move and what are the advantages?
The relocation is linked with a comprehensive modernization initiative. With two new, spacious halls and a modern congress center we will reach a completely new level regarding appearance, convenience and logistics. Another new feature is an open air plaza with food trucks.
What is the current booking situation?
Already now, over two months before ANGA COM’s start, more than 420 exhibitors have registered. This exceeds the exhibition space of the previous year. Many companies have used the relocation to increase their stand space. That is a fantastic response. Especially well received was that we could offer significantly more choices and design leeway within the new booth allocation. Just to name a few, especially prominent names: Cisco, Huawei, Nokia, Arris, Appear TV, AVM, Unitymedia, Astra, Eutelsat, Media Broadcast and the Deutsche will be present with large booths.
ANGA COM is more and more becoming an international event – can you tell us from what countries people come?
Last year we reached a 52 percent share of international visitors, mainly from Great Britain, the Netherlands, Switzerland, USA, France, Austria, Belgium and Poland.
Can you elaborate on this year’s congress? What are the highlights?
We have just released a preview of our congress agenda that lists a total of 27 expert panels. Following the slogan ‘Where Broadband meets Content’ topics of the media panels include the keywords AppTV and OTT, HD and UHDTV, DVB-T2, Virtual Reality, Big Data, Personalized TV and copy right. The broadband panels focus on gigabit networks, new cooperation models, DOCSIS 3.1, WiFi, Internet of Things, Smart Home and Smart City.
As every year, our opening discussion will be the highlight of the congress. This year, it is composed with especially high-level representatives of the broadband and media industry: Dr. Hannes Ametsreiter (CEO, Vodafone Germany), Niek Jan van Damme (Member of the Management Board, Deutsche Telekom), Anke Schäferkordt (CEO, Media Group RTL Deutschland), Carsten Schmidt (CEO, Sky Deutschland), Ronny Verhelst (CEO, Tele Columbus) and Christoph Vilanek (CEO, freenet). The discussion takes place under the headline “Gigabit, 4K and Over the Top: Broadband and Media under Disruption“.
And what about the international sessions?
The congress agenda offers 14 international sessions which will be performed in English. All other panels in German will be translated simultaneously into English. Highlight of the international congress track is the International Television & Broadband Summit. Speakers are: Yvette Kanouff (Senior Vice President / General Manager Service Provider Business, Cisco), Gerhard Mack (Chief Commercial Operations Officer, Vodafone Germany), Steve McCaffery (President International, ARRIS Group), Mads Arnbjoern Rasmussen (CTO of Huawei Europe, Huawei) and Dr. Dirk Wössner (President, Consumer Business Unit, Rogers Communications).
How can visitors register for ANGA COM?
The visitor registration for the exhibition and congress is available online at www.angacom.de. An admission ticket to the exhibition costs 22 Euros for three days upon prior online registration (ticket office on-site: 35 Euros), congress season tickets start at 100 Euros. As in the previous year, the third day is designed as Broadband Theme Day with free access for all visitors upon prior online registration.
