With the new congress center opened in 2018, the traditional Kurhaus and the Jagdschloss Platte, Wiesbaden Congress and Marketing has three attractive locations for many organizers.

But since the spring of 2020, the corona pandemic has ruined the business of the municipal events subsidiary under the umbrella of the Triwicon in-house operation.

Oliver Bock

Correspondent for the Rhein-Main-Zeitung for the Rheingau-Taunus district and for Wiesbaden.

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A report for the city's finance committee shows the financial consequences of the cancellation of many events due to the pandemic.

Accordingly, the Triwicon equity, which was still 6.8 million euros at the end of 2019, is now not only completely consumed: If no countermeasures are taken, the equity will foreseeably be "negative" and at the end of the year be minus 2.5 million euros .

Call for help to the Chamberlain

The decisive factors are the high operating losses and the insufficient annual operating subsidy from the city.

Holding Triwicon closed 2021 with a loss of 5.75 million euros.

The hope that 2022 would bring significant improvements because the restrictions imposed to combat the pandemic were largely lifted over the course of the year were not fulfilled to the extent hoped for.

According to current planning, a deficit of almost 3.6 million euros is calculated for 2022.

According to the report to the city's financial politicians, savings at Triwicon are only possible through performance restrictions.

Because “all optimization possibilities including the introduction of short-time work, suspension of external services, postponing of vacancies and applications for state economic aid” have already been exhausted.

This is equivalent to a call for help to the chamberlain.

Actually, Triwicon, which takes over all the losses from Congress & Marketing, could have cushioned the consequences of the pandemic better, because in September 2021 the city council decided to increase the annual operating cost subsidy to 16.9 million euros.

Under the umbrella of Triwicon, the municipal Kurhaus GmbH was merged with Rhein-Main-Hallen GmbH and Wiesbaden Marketing GmbH in 2019 in order to streamline the city group.

Then Corona came.

New caterer for the convention center

The treasurer decided in March 2022 that, given the still good liquidity, a subsidy of almost 11.8 million euros should be sufficient for Triwicon.

In addition, the costs for the Christmas market and other activities that were actually supposed to be taken over by the city remained on the Triwicon.

The precarious financial situation of Triwicon is also due to the fact that their greensill plant worth five million euros has probably been lost.

Fiscal politicians took note of this analysis of the financial situation without discussion.

Immediate consequences are not yet in sight, but it will be imperative for Wiesbaden to provide more money for the suffering event subsidiary.

One bright spot is the gastronomy in the RMCC.

After the departure of the Munich catering company Kuffler in the summer of 2022, one of the competitors who lost out in the tendering process for the catering management of the congress center has now been awarded the contract.

The new catering partner of the state capital is the Mainz-based catering company Gauls, initially for a period of seven years.

It also has the option to extend the contract for a further three years.

According to the city, the decision was made after a “proper EU-wide award procedure with a participation competition”.

However, Gauls is said to have been the only applicant.

As reported, there were retrospective doubts as to whether the award for Kuffler at the time was legal, because the gastronomy planner selected by the city for the award procedure had an uneasy relationship with Kuffler and allegedly preferred him.

Provision of guests from January

At the time, Gauls Managing Director Andreas Gaul heavily criticized the award procedure in the Audit Committee.

He also spoke of bad planning because the RMCC convention center needed a self-sufficient canteen kitchen and not just a small delivery kitchen, through which the caterer had to deliver everything necessary with a great deal of logistical effort.

"A delivery kitchen of this size is completely unusual," said Gaul at the time.

Now Gauls Catering GmbH & Co. KG is to start catering for the guests in the congress center in January.

This corresponds to the recommendation of the Supervisory Board of Wiesbaden Congress & Marketing GmbH.

Managing director Martin Michel is to negotiate the final details of the contract.

"We are very happy that we have succeeded in winning a well-established caterer in the region and beyond to manage the RMCC," said Wiesbaden Mayor Oliver Franz (CDU) at the end of his term as head of the economic department.

In a statement from the city, a satisfied caterer Andreas Gaul is quoted: "We are pleased that with the RMCC we will be able to include Wiesbaden's largest and one of the newest event venues in Germany in our portfolio and that we will assume responsibility for the gastronomic offer".

RMCC Managing Director Michel is no less satisfied that the transitional period of several months with changing caterers is over.

In addition to the catering in the RMCC, Gauls is also to run the restaurant there, which under Kuffler met with a moderate response in the phase after the opening of the RMCC.

It is said that detailed plans for the catering and restaurant operations are still being drawn up.