2m2c: From Jazz festivals to International Conferences!

Crossing the stunning landscape between the steep slopes of the Alps and the shores of Lake Leman, we find a timeless Swiss postcard: Montreux takes us back to its jazz festival and the celebrities who have called it home, but it also plays host to international conferences at the Montreux Music & Convention Centre.

One cannot resist the beauty of this place when you arrive nor the nostalgia when you leave it. Montreux is centrally located in the European continent with some 150 direct flights at surrounding airports and train connections to a wide variety of destinations. With more than 2500 rooms including standard hotels, palaces and tailor-made venues, the Montreux Riviera is a dream come true with all the necessary amenities to host your event, including short walking distance between venues, refined spaces of belle époque architecture and top-notch services.

Among the many festivals, urban legends and major conferences held here, the Montreux Jazz Festival stands out as its cultural flagship being one of the most prestigious musical events in the world. From a small, purely jazzy three-day gathering at the Montreux Casino, the annual gathering has turned into an eclectic platform that today features artists from almost every musical style imaginable at the Montreux Music & Convention Centre (2m2c). An 18,000m2 multipurpose exhibition centre hosting all kinds of professional, cultural and public events on the shores of Lake Leman, the 2m2c boasts a fully adaptable infrastructure, both modular and multifunctional, and is fully equipped to host most MICE events.

“Our partners are finding it quite difficult to hire employees back as many of them have resigned from the pandemic. All organisations will have to rest their business models and tweak the way they were running operations,” warns Crégut.

This is the great asset for organisers, exhibitors and visitors, since the venue includes the Auditorium Stravinski − adapted for 450 to 1,650 people for a congress and up to 800 for a gala dinner − and the 900-seat Miles Davis Hall (photo below). Its accessibility to hotels, restaurants, shops and the casino makes it a perfect venue for international events, which also include the International Recruitment Forum, and the Geneva II Conference press centre. During the pandemic, they were never completely closed and managed to maintain a minimum of activity throughout the period. Rémy Crégut, CEO of 2m2c, explains: “We tried to explore various possibilities in serving our residents, so we became the headquarters of the Civil Defence task group for two months, a vaccination centre visited by 25,000 people for six months. We were also the meeting room of the city council, and the host of several virtual event stages.”

This has not prevented the convention centre from suffering a particular impact due to the shutting of cultural activities that represent 50% of the overall budget. In the last two years, the venue has received subsidies from the Ministry of Culture and from the Canton of Vaud for partial unemployment, a situation that has now normalised as they were able to end both years with a positive balance. Last but not least, this retraction of activity coincided with a possible closure of the centre for renovation in 2019 (now postponed to 2023), so they were already managing the space with a very light team. “We were also very lucky to host two major events as the pandemic began to recede: the Swiss Economic Forum in September 2020 and the UEFA Congress in April 2021, both with stringent health measures,” says Crégut.

The big question for the future of 2m2c in relation to potential pandemics will be how to improve the air ventilation systems in large concert halls and banquet halls specifically applied to the space. The good news for Rémy is that employees, but also attendees, “have learned to protect themselves when necessary, according to standard procedures and the convention centre’s rulebook.” The management’s goal for 2022 is to achieve 90% of 2019 annual revenues, but more importantly, 2m2c wants to maintain the high level of customer satisfaction that they have continuously sustained since 2015. Of course, their flagship event could not go unnoticed: “The Montreux Jazz festival is not only our biggest annual income but also our biggest promotional vehicle worldwide. During two weeks, 90,000 people attended at least one concert and 180,000 walked into the venue. These are extremely important figures for us!”

Nevertheless, a major setback at this turning point is clearly workforce and talent retention. “Our partners are finding it quite difficult to hire employees back as many of them have resigned from the pandemic. All organisations will have to rest their business models and tweak the way they were running operations,” warns Crégut. This is clearly a problem shared by other convention centres and a huge wake-up call to make MICE industry jobs more attractive in the very near future. About the technological advances and improvements that pandemic pushed forward, the CEO did not stammer: “The new technology for events is all about providing a smart architecture of fibre optic connection to high-speed Internet throughout the building, as well as access to electricity. The second point is to have an in-house partner capable of proposing all kinds of innovative and quality solutions at the right price.”

Thanks to the Montreux City Council and following Swiss environmental policies, the 2m2c was already a smart building when it comes to sustainability. With the renovation project, 2m2c will be able to upgrade and improve the existing technology with solar panels and geothermal energy for the heating system. The ban on plastic bottles is already on its way, but the venue is still working on a major plan with innovative operational solutions.