People at Krones – Sandra Schindlbeck

11 men, 4 women, 1 goal. As of today, Sandra Schindlbeck and her trade fair team are tasked with erecting Krones’ stand at the drinktec. They have two weeks to get the job done, because when the first exhibits are delivered on 19 August, the basis structure has to be in place. Even though it’s the fourth drinktec for the Project Manager in the Trade Fair Department – it’s a whole new challenge every time.

5 August 2013 – today, the erection work for the drinktec begins. What’s the mood like among the team on site?

Our 15-strong core team is really looking forward to the challenge that the drinktec invariably poses. We can hardly wait to finally translate theory into practice.

Together with the on-site team, a whole lot of material arrives at the fair’s halls. Have you got a few figures to give us an idea?

Before the drinktec opens its doors on 16 September, about 200 trucks will be descending on Munich. We shall be erecting 53 machines – deploying 47 staff. The entire erection job takes 6 weeks, whereas dismantling it needs only 6 days. We lay around 11,000 square metres of carpeting. The length of the power cables comes to about 5,000 metres, with another 15,000 metres of fibre-optic and telephone lines.

A glance into the empty hall reveals: there’s a lot to do here. What are your first steps?

First of all, we get our bearings in the hall itself, and mentally plan how to translate the stand from paper to reality. An empty hall of this size is always very impressive. The next step is to check and inspect the connections installed by the exhibition’s organisers (power, compressed air, water, etc.) to make sure they’re in the right positions. After the team’s been divided up into groups for specific tasks, we lay about 200 metres of 40-bar compressed-air lines, measure the subsequent positions for the machines, and do all the other preparatory work.

But you don’t just work inside the hall.

No! Outdoors, we’re simultaneously working on setting up Krones’ temporary fair headquarters, with office containers, workshop and storage containers.

What kind of feeling is it when you see a vibrant trade fair landscape take shape in what was an empty hall?

The drinktec 2013 is the fourth one at which I’ve been responsible for the exhibits, the logistics, the services and the personnel for handling the exhibits. It’s a very good, enjoyable feeling to see how the stand grows, and how one exhibit after the other goes operational.

At 4 drinktecs, there must have been plenty of incidents worth remembering. Have you got any favourite anecdotes to tell us?

There would be lots, but there’s one I recall especially: we had some trainees with us, same as always. The four of them were wonderfully motivated and got every job done very quickly. Then the quartet happened to be passing me and asked what needed doing. Jokily, I said with a wink that in the container the windows had to be cleaned, the floor swept and all the surfaces wiped down. When I came back after a quarter of an hour, the four of them were actually hard at work, and the container was gleaming! It just goes to show you how motivated everyone is and that we have a really good team spirit.