Germany, we STILL need to talk about Leitungswasser.

This week I attended OMR in Hamburg for the first time. It’s an Online Marketing event for the German market, and even though I work for the UK market (for a German company - idealo internet GmbH ) I thought it might be useful to go along. 

TLDR: The German events industry is failing its attendees on the simplest aspect of sustainability and it REALLY needs to change. 

Unfortunately, I spent a large chunk of the event feeling completely dehydrated and unable to focus because I couldn't afford to buy enough of the water being sold there.

For context: this is a BIG event in Germany. It has limited international relevance, but around 70,000 marketers from the DACH market attend over two days and there are several huge stages alongside hundreds of workshops and masterclasses. They even invited pretty impressive guest speakers such as Kim Kardashian and Tim Ferriss . OMR clearly isn’t afraid to splash the cash, but I wonder, how are they funding these big names? 

• Is it through the ticket sales (tickets to the 2-day event costs between €500 - €900 per person, let’s call it around €49 million?) 
• Is it through the 1000 event sponsors and exhibitors? (To name just a few: Meta , SAP , KPMG , Mastercard , Salesforce , Klarna , Google , Vodafone , AUDI AG , Sony , TikTok , Spotify , Lucky Strike Tobacco (this is one was particularly hilarious to me, is it 1972?)

I've no idea what each of these brands paid to advertise at OMR, but based on my experiences being an exhibitor at other events I'd guess A LOT. 

Nope, astoundingly this event is kept afloat by the sale of extortionately-priced water to its attendees:

My post on X ended up going a bit viral and generated a lot of backlash towards OMR , so it seems I am not alone in thinking they have made a questionable business decision here.

Nur in Deutschland: €8.50* for a cup of tap water

Why am I getting so worked up about water you might ask?

Picture the scene. You’re spending 2 days in a sprawling convention centre that is packed to the rafters. It’s May, around 20 degrees and sunny in Hamburg. You’ve been dashing from one talk to another and networking all morning, so obviously you’ve long finished the water in the re-useable bottle you brought with you. You approach one of the many bars and the conversation goes like this:

Me: “Hi, where can I refill my water bottle please?”

Bar staff: “Oh, erm, I don’t know, we don’t have any water fountains or anything like that. Maybe in the toilets?”

Me: “That doesn’t sound very hygienic. Don’t you have any water fountains, I thought this was advertised as a sustainable event?”

Bar staff: “Oh yes we have an OMR sustainability concept. You can buy a cup of water for *€3.50 + €5 deposit for the cup.”

Me: “Wow, that is expensive for a cup(!) of mineral water.”

Bar staff: “Actually it is tap water. I'm sorry, I also find it ridiculous.”

🤯🤯🤯

I repeated this conversation at several of the OMR bars and service desks across the event, speaking to bar staff and team leaders, and nobody could tell me where I could refill my bottle without paying €8.50 (For clarity: €5 of this would be refunded to me when I returned the plastic cup).

One of them told me that the tap water at Hamburg Messe und Congress GmbH is not drinkable and therefore they had to hire water filters so they can’t offer it for free.

...Or throw it in with the €500+ ticket price.

So they’re willing to be sustainable, but only if they can shift the cost of doing so onto their attendees.

...Or worse make a considerable profit from it (more on this later).

Let the little guys foot the bill

One of the reasons that I am so riled up by OMR 's profiteering here is because they're putting a big, unnecessary cost on those least able to carry it.

For those attendees who had a need to drink a larger amount of water due to being pregnant, breastfeeding or because of a medical condition it was no doubt an extremely expensive couple of days.

Equally, those more junior attendees, or those attending from smaller companies whose bosses hadn't given them an unlimited expenses budget for the trip, are the ones who will end up dehydrated and unable to make the most of the event because they can't afford to buy enough water.

Does that seem fair or inclusive in 2024?

"Sustainability Concept" - but only if we can make €€€ from it

A big part of OMR’s advertising in the run up to the event was based around how sustainable it was meant to be. Having a sustainability concept has become an important buzzword for the events industry, and OMR have paid a lot of lip service to the idea.

Actually, to be fair and acknowledge something they did well, all the food being sold there (ahem - also at very inflated prices, but thats a rant for another day) was vegan-first, and they had a deposit system in place for all cutlery & plates which reduced the amount of rubbish produced considerably - bravo for that.

But picking and choosing which aspects of your event are going to be part of your sustainability concept based on how much you can rip off your customers is pure greenwashing, and frankly, it’s embarrassing.

Charge me whatever you like for alcoholic drinks and other non-essentials,  go ahead and line your already-fat coffers every time I order a gin & tonic, but don’t stoop so low as to rip off people who just need to re-hydrate at an event that has already cost €€€ to attend.

As it was, if you wanted alcoholic drinks, they were plentiful and ironically, often free. Welcome to Germany.

How to make over a million Euros from selling tap water

Would the organisers of this event be brave enough to tell us how much profit they made from sales of tap water to attendees who had no other way to quench their thirst? 

If you'd tried to hit even the minimum recommended H²o intake of around 8 glasses a day at OMR it would have set you back €3.50 x 8 = €28 x 2 days of the event =€56!

I highly doubt anyone did this of course, given the prices, but the earnings potential for OMR from water sales is huge - a cool €3,920,000 FOR SELLING TAP WATER.

Even if we took a more conservative estimate that 50,000 attendees drank just 3 glasses of water a day at €3,50 a pop then the tap water revenue for the event was still €1,050,000!

Based on the slogan on the machines I could see at the bars, it looked like OMR hired in their filters from Water Is Right Foundation. This seems to be an organisation with a worthy cause, but it would be interesting to know how much it costs to hire their water filters for a 2 day event, and whether it comes anywhere close to 4 million Euros...?

The ironic thing is that if they had sold us the filtered tap water at cost so that each attendee just had to pay a nominal amount for each cup, then I probably wouldn't have kicked up a fuss at all.

Unfortunately, OMR aren't alone in charging ridiculous prices for water in Germany, it's hard-coded into the culture and many Germans think it is normal.

Most of the German hospitality industry is in the clenches of Big Water. If you don't believe me, just try and order a glass of tap water with your glass of wine or cup of coffee at any eating establishment in Germany without the restaurateur giving you the sharpest daggers and a frosty "Nein, das haben wir nicht."

So, Philipp Westermeyer , Philipp Isfort , Jasper Ramm and Isabelle Gardt (if you're reading this and you know any of the OMR head honchos, please do tag them below, I’d love to hear their thoughts), what are you doing to do to make sure next year’s OMR is the Bahnbrecher that paves the way to show the German market how to do sustainability and hospitality properly? 

Should event venues provide water fountains?

I guess it also opens up a bigger question of should the onus be on the event organisers to provide free drinking water, or should it be part of the infrastructure provided by the venue itself?

I’m not really sure which, but it definitely shouldn’t be up to the attendees to pay vast sums for something as essential drinking water when they're in a closed environment such as a convention centre.

If you’re running an event of this scale then certain things (eg. toilets, security, first aid) need to be included in the price, and drinking water is no different.

I’d also love to hear from the organisers of similar events and venues around the world to know how you handle the provision of tap water?

It would be really interesting if the likes of DigiMarCon - Digital Marketing, Media and Advertising Conferences & Exhibitions Excel London McCormick Place The NEC, Birmingham Manchester Central Javits Center Metro Toronto Convention Centre App Promotion Summit could share some tips to give OMR a hand in doing better next time and still turning a decent profit.

Finally, I’m proud to work for idealo internet GmbH , a company that genuinely takes its commitment to the climate seriously and without cutting corners. That’s not necessarily something that is straightforward in the e-commerce industry, nor is it for the events industry.

But thanks to Albrecht von Sonntag 's unrelenting dedication to the cause, idealo is making an actual difference to reverse climate change despite being active in an industry that is undoubtedly contributing to it in a major way, because that is the only decent way to act as a company in 2024.

There is no reason why OMR can’t join us and do the same for the German events industry, without detriment to its delegates.

If you agree with me that the German events & hospitality industry needs to take a long hard look at how it handles the provision of drinking water, please tag OMR in the comments below and help me ask them very nicely to reconsider this part of their “Sustainability Concept" for #OMR25.

And if you made it this far through my rant then give yourself a pat on the back, and treat yourself to a delicious cup of (free) tap water. 🚰