Actually, every day was exciting, but there were hardly any really crazy days. It was always interesting, there was always something going on from morning to evening.

Around 20 years ago, there was an incident I’ve never forgotten to this day. At a trade fair, I believe it was the Hardware Fair, an engineer was interested in a particular watch, which we were giving away as a promotional gift. He didn’t know where it came from at first until he found out – either via the head office or reception – that we, the advertising department, had the gift. He got put through to me on the phone and asked me if he could have one of these watches. We no longer had the model he wanted in stock, so I found another watch in our storeroom and sent it to him. A few days later, he thanked me very sincerely. Ever since, this man has wished me a happy birthday every year, but I don’t know how he found out when my birthday is. Although I’ve never seen him, he calls or sends me an email every year. He recently wrote to tell me that he’s now retired as well.

Yes, it was on the 70th birthday of Dieter Ebert, the former managing director of Koelnmesse. People at Koelnmesse called him Jumbo, because he was quite tall and broad, a fine figure of a man, so to speak. For his milestone birthday, the HR department wanted to give him something special, befitting his nickname. But as they couldn’t find the right gift at first, they asked me to buy a giant cuddly elephant. I started searching and, after about eight days, came across a blue elephant sitting down of around 1.40 metres tall. We presented the elephant to Dieter Ebert at his birthday reception at Auenplatz. It was very funny. All the guests laughed — and he was very pleased himself.

I never really had a favourite trade fair. As the Photo Office was one of my areas of responsibility, I was always present at all the trade fairs. But I enjoyed visiting the Anuga. It was always very interesting and really impressive. Looking after representatives and everything to do with promotional gifts, letterheads, business cards and so on were still part of my job back then, so I was always able to have a nice chat with all the representatives. But above all, there were lots of opportunities to pinch one or two treats from the stands! I also enjoyed the photokina. I really liked visiting these two trade fairs, Anuga and photokina, mainly for professional reasons. But I also found most of the other trade fairs appealing, I always enjoyed attending every single one. I was particularly impressed by the mix.

They were all positive, so it’s not easy to single out one in particular. All the representatives we dealt with were pleasant; everything was also great with my colleagues. Apart from the example I mentioned earlier, we rarely had any contact with trade fair visitors because the relevant departments looked after them. Of course, I had some very strong relationships with my colleagues, some of which continue to this day. Back then, we had a good relationship with protocol, bookkeeping, assets accounting and cost accounting, and especially with purchasing. It stood out to me that we always coordinated perfectly, were always on the same wavelength and, if that wasn’t the case, discussed the various options openly and constructively. On the whole, Koelnmesse was one of the best employers you could have in my day.

I’ve had a lot of employers. I’ve worked in agencies, in politics, in trade and in industry. And I can truly say that in terms of interpersonal relationships, Koelnmesse was the best. Of course, there were occasional disagreements, but we always remained professional. It was never personal, but always about getting the best result. I thought that was very good.

I experienced several formative developments. I remember very well when Lufthansa and Koelnmesse teamed up. Back then, we served three airports from Hall 1: Cologne/Bonn, Frankfurt and Düsseldorf. The Lufthansa Express was still running at that time, so Lufthansa operated a counter on the trade fair grounds staffed by a team of four: two for ticket sales, two for check-in. Visitors could book or rebook tickets for all three airports directly from the trade fair and check in at the same time. I was in charge of organising this. This meant that we had to set up and dismantle the counter before and after every trade fair, sometimes in the east, sometimes in the west – depending on where the main trade fair was being held. We had to set up two counters including all the technical equipment. It was a lot of work, but very interesting.

The Federal Office of Civil Aeronautics regularly came by to check that we were complying with regulations. It was only after the annual inspection that we – and Lufthansa – received approval to process passengers. In addition, luggage transport had to be organised in such a way that there were no security gaps. This meant that no unauthorised people were allowed access to the luggage during loading. At the time, we flew almost everywhere with Lufthansa, and passengers flying with partner airlines could also check in at Koelnmesse. That job kept me very busy but was also extremely interesting and formative for me.

Another event that I remember to this day was the changeover of the old Koelnmesse logo to the new system. We commissioned the same company that had worked for Frankfurt Airport. It completely reorganised our electronic data processing, including Koelnmesse print templates such as letterheads and envelopes, as well as all files and notes. Today, nobody uses pre-printed letterheads the way they used to. But back then, the whole thing was entered into the computer system as a template and could simply be called up. It was a very extensive and difficult process to get everything just right. Eventually, the day came when we were able to launch the new system. We compiled folders for all employees containing all the templates and their instructions, documenting everything we had newly established. On the day, all the necessary documents were laid out on the tables – we destroyed the old samples and templates right away.