The construction of Ágora generated more than 15,000 direct and indirect jobs and it is estimated that its impact on the city's economy will be up to 1% of GDP for its fourth year of operation.
Richard Santa
After an effort by public and private entities, Bogotá, the Colombian capital, has been growing as a stage for events of international stature. To respond to this growth, at the end of 2017 the Agora International Convention Center was inaugurated, an initiative of the Chamber of Commerce of Bogotá, with its subsidiary Corferias, and the Government through the National Tourism Fund, Fontur.
The Convention Center has an area of 64,883 m2 distributed over five floors, a main hall of 3,100 m2 with capacity for 4,000 attendees, as well as another 10 rooms that can be divided into 18 spaces for meetings of between 100 and 2,000 people.
Among other facilities for attendees, Ágora has 1,055 parking lots, 19 elevators, 12 escalators, four kitchens, three independent registration areas, four VIP areas, three terraces and four lobby areas distributed throughout the building.
Mónica de Greiff, Executive President of the Chamber of Commerce of Bogotá, explained that "the building has the highest specifications in terms of events, a work that allows us to advance in the city's marketing strategy with which we seek to position ourselves as an international epicenter for events and attract more business for our economy." According to calculations of the Chamber, the economic contribution derived from the activities carried out in Agora could be close to 1% of the Gross Domestic Product of the city in its fourth year of operation.
To achieve this goal, the Chamber has set itself the goal of hosting in Agora on average 212 events per year, of which it is expected that 20 will be quantifiable within the ranking made by the International Congress and Convention Association (ICCA), an entity that measures and highlights the progress made by cities in terms of event organization. In total, $414,000 million Colombian pesos were invested in its construction.
Latest AV technology
A modern building that seeks to position itself internationally as an event scene, must have the latest in audiovisual technology. For this, the American company Acustic was in charge of designing the audiovisual part, guaranteeing very high standards. Based on this design, a public tender was made that was won by RLASAV.
The company of Chilean origin, with presence in Colombia several years ago, was in charge of installing in Agora the video, automation and operation systems of all the events that take place in the convention center. Víctor Matamala, manager for Colombia of RLASAV, commented that as part of their offer in the tender, they offered to install projectors in each of the rooms above the requirements they requested, with equipment of 8 thousand, 12 thousand and 25 thousand laser lumens from Epson and with Shure microphones.
They will also take care of the digital signage of the convention center, both the creation of the content and the operation. The entire enclosure has an audio system installed to meet ambient sound and simple microphone requirements, and the lighting is controlled. Automation will be supported from two 56 x 56 Crestron dies.
To attend the operation of the events that take place in the Agora, RLASAV has a fixed team of 10 people, which can increase to 30 according to the event. In addition, they have two warehouses within the convention center to meet mobile requirements. In addition, the in-house office has technical and commercial staff that helps design the projects and presents a render to the client of how the final result of their event will be.
One of the advantages of the construction of this building is that the wiring for the audiovisual installation was contemplated from the design of the work and in all the rooms they included anchor points to hang what is desired for each event and connection boxes at different points.
Víctor Matamala assured that the operation of RLASAV officially began in January 2018 with the installation of the technology, although in the three months of operation at the end of 2017 they made about 22 events. One of the advantages of their operation is that they offer a point of contact to the customer to centralize all their requirements. They have partner companies that provide the additional solutions
With international projection
RLASAV is the Chilean company that will serve as an operator of audiovisual services in the Agora. Hernán Godoy, director for Latin America of the company, said that in this convention center they will apply a model that has been successful in other countries where the venues operate.
This model seeks to offer the entire solution to customers in one place, with high quality, efficiency and competitive costs. In order to offer all services, even those that are not related to the audiovisual area, such as registration, stand design, among others, they seek alliances with companies in the sector that respond to the needs of the RLASAV model and standards.
Part of the business strategy of your model is not to wait for events to come. RLASAV will look for them together with the commercial staff of the convention center, bureaus and chambers of commerce.
Hernán Godoy stressed that the company has had an important growth in recent years with a strong international expansion. In addition to Chile, where they have a presence in much of the territory, they are in Peru, Panama, Colombia, Miami and will soon reach new markets. In total they have 33 warehouses throughout Latin America, 57 in-house hotels, 9 corporate offices and 10 thousand events held every month.
Finally, the director for Latin America of RLASAV stressed that this growth has been supported by providing an excellent service, applying the latest technology and hand in hand with its employees within the company, to whom, as a corporate policy, they provide opportunities for training and growth.
