ADVERTISEMENTThe G20 meeting is a massive feat of organisation involving tens of thousands of people.
Here are some numbers that give you an idea of what is going on:
1-4 36 delegations with up to 6,500 participants will be attending and almost as many journalists will cover the event (5,000 from 65 countries).
5-6 70 kilometres of electric and communication cables and 25 km of fibre optic cables have been installed.
7 The media centre is 25,000 square metres in size. The bridge that connects the two main buildings of the area is called the skywalk.
8 45 chefs will cook meals for journalists: the specialities from northern Germany are called Labskaus, Scholle Finkenwerder Art, Matjes and Krabben. But there will also be halal, vegetarian, kosher, vegan, gluten and lactose-free meals.
9 70 specially-chartered aircraft will land at Hamburg’s airport.
10 According to German foreign ministry 9,000 hotel rooms in Hamburg are reserved for the participants.
11-13 More than 20,000 police, 3,000 emergency vehicles and 11 helicopters will be deployed.
14-15 The menu for the attendees has not been published but the police will be given packed lunches (bread, cheese, cold meats, fruit and a cereal bar) plus 100,000 warm meals and 600,000 soft drinks. On the first day of the G20, police will eat beef goulash. The vegetarian option is carrot goulash.
16-19 Journalists will be fed as well: all-in-all there was an order for 15 tonnes of food: 400 kg of Bratwurst, 1,000 kg of vegetables and 12,000 chocolate bars.
20-22 Police are preparing for 8,000 violent left-wing extremists – in a detention area of 11,000 square metres they will be able to hold up to 400 suspects.
23 140 prosecution lawyers will be working 24/7.
24-25 More than 50 protest marches have been registered. Police estimate between 30,000 and 150,000 people will take part. #schlaflosinHH (sleeplessinHH) is the hashtag on Twitter to find/offer a place to sleep for protesters, people also indicate areas where tents can be put up. A court decided the area for protest marches cannot be used for camping since “sleeping in a tent is a neutral activity and you cannot express your opinion while sleeping”.
The slogan of those who camp anyway is “Yes, we camp”.
26 Because of the traffic chaos around 10,000 Hamburgers are on “summit-Leave” and are either supposed to stay home and work or are on special holiday leave or are forced to take overtime. If parents don’t want to send their children to school during the summit because they are concerned for their safety, a simple e-mail is enough to let the school administration know. Kommerzbank has urged their employees not to wear suits on their way to work so they don’t get attacked by extremists, who may think they are summit-participants.
27 Trump’s convoy is estimated to be 45 cars long. The Saudi Arabian king Salman booked the whole Four Seasons hotel and the Hotel Westin before cancelling his trip and sending his foreign minister instead. His initial plan was to bring along some camels (for their milk) and 30 frozen mutton. Because no hotel could take the whole US delegation (media reports suggest that the Four Seasons Hotel rejected them) they are likely to stay in the guesthouse of the foreign ministry. The deputy mayor of the city, Katharina Fegebank, said to the Hamburger Abendblatt newspaper: “Your mother-in-law and the US-President are the only people you have to offer your guesthouse to, even if you don’t like them.” British, Indian and Brazil delegations will stay in the same hotel
29 The retail sector in Hamburg calculates the loss of sales during the summit as being €15 million.
30 Officially the country calculated the costs of hosting the summit at €190 million, but other put the costs far higher. The central German government and the city of Hamburg will share the burden.