The first fully digital party conference in Germany

The party conventions of the CDU (Christian Democratic Union) of Germany serve to strengthen the sense of togetherness among members. However, in 2020/21, Germany was in lockdown and many of the party’s 400,000 members were working from home, making eye-to-eye debates or voting by show of hands impossible. So, an event was invented to demonstrate togetherness without being together. For 1,001 delegates and millions of live viewers across Germany, the feeling of being closely united was given a new stage: the new Union circle as a symbol of togetherness of people and topics. It shaped the concentric studio design and worked as a multifunctional nucleus for all areas of application of the party conference, from multimedia branding to goodie boxes for delegates and a digital voting system to website, studio, furniture and motion design. The circular studio defined the agora for speeches and debates, brought candidates and delegates together and compensated for the lack of audience presence and response. Finally, XR productions made it possible to experience one of the world’s first digital votes in real time.