beyond tellerrand is one of the most unique and deeply inspirational events I’ve been a part of. The blend of creative people from various disciplines mixed with the care and openness that Marc brings to everything he does, consistently leaves everyone more connected, inspired, and alive with possibility. We certainly need more of this in the world!
For many months, I am searching for new home for beyond tellerrand in Berlin. We had a lovely home in the Admiralspalast for five years, but sadly the owner of the venue did not extend the contract and is building offices into the floors with the Studio and the F1010, the two theatres we used in the upper floors.
I have been waiting to get final notice from the Admiralspalast and was hoping that maybe they would find a way to keep the theatres, but sadly I got a letter a while ago stating, that they’ll close down in April. Since I know this, I am on the search for a new home for my little event. I checked many, many venues, travelled to Berlin numerous times, had a lot of conversations and checked sent offers. And where a few had been too far out, others not ideal from the way they were structures, other where simply way to expensive (with prices like €84,000 for two days).
I finally visited a venue – the Französische Friedrichstadtkirche – where I thought ”Well, that is different, but it looks very nice and could possibly a nice new home for us”. Even though the room layout wasn’t ideal. For me it is important to have a nice and cozy theatre, but also room for the exhibition as socialising and networking in between the talks is a huge part of what beyond tellerrand is. But I was confident I wanted to give it a try at least. The person who is responsible for renting it to me is nice, we had good conversations and he understood the idea of beyond tellerrand and how the people are, coming to this event.
So everything seemed fine until I had to speak to the person running the restaurant in the basement, who usually is the in house catering person as well. But not only this, as without the space of the restaurant, which usually is possible to be used for events in addition to the rest of the basement, we would not be on the safe side to have enough space to accommodate all the attendees and exhibitors in the breaks. As you might guess, when I say it seemed fine, he is the one throwing stones (or more rocks) in my way now. After a quite nice conversation with this person (my wife and I travelled to Berlin for this only), we felt quite positive, until we got an email from him stating, that he won’t do the catering and also won’t give us the room (which is the more important part).
So now it does not really look like we are able to use this wonderful space, as we won’t have enough space to hang out during the breaks and this guy sadly is not interested in any compromise. Very sad for us. And this means, that all this starts from zero now. This morning I already had many phone calls and emails with more possible venues and I won’t give up, as I think beyond tellerrand should not be without an edition in Berlin after we had 5 wonderful events in this city.
Fingers crossed and I’ll keep you posted.