Shaping High-Impact Events: Strategic Support for BGS24

In 2024 Hormuud Telecom convened Bandhiga Guuleytayaasha Soomaaliyeed (BGS24) in Mogadishu, a celebration of Somali excellence and innovation across sectors. Veynuus was engaged to support two sides of the same event: what was said from the stage, and how more than five hundred guests moved through the room. That meant agenda and session design, preparation of panellists, a managed media space for high-level guests, ticketing and check-in for the full audience, and the audiovisual setup that carried the programme.

An event of this type has two failure modes and they pull against each other. It can be beautifully planned and fall apart in delivery, because the agenda assumed a punctuality and a room flow that did not survive contact with five hundred people. Or it can be operationally tidy and say nothing, because the sessions were assembled around who was available rather than around an argument the host wanted to make. BGS24 had to be strong on both counts, with live media present to record whichever way it went.

The guest profile raised the stakes. High-level attendees arrive on their own timetable, often with their own protocol requirements, and they need somewhere to be that is neither the main hall nor a corridor. Media need access to those guests, but access has to be arranged rather than improvised, or the interviews compete with the programme instead of supporting it. Both needs had to be designed for in advance and then policed on the night.

Delivering in Mogadishu adds constraints that are easy to underestimate from outside. Entry screening takes time, which changes the arrival curve for a large audience and makes queue management a security question as well as a hospitality one. Power and connectivity at a venue cannot simply be assumed to hold for the duration of a programme, so any digital check-in has to be designed to keep working when conditions change. The planning window was short, and much of the coordination had to happen alongside the client's own preparations rather than after them.

Veynuus began at the level of the programme rather than the logistics. Agenda setting and session design came first: deciding what the evening was for, which subjects deserved a panel rather than a speech, how long each segment could hold an audience, and where the recognitions sat relative to the discussion. An awards programme has a natural rhythm, and losing it, usually by stacking too much content before the moment people came for, is the most common way these events lose a room.

Panellist preparation followed. The team prepared biographies and moderation questions so that sessions had a direction rather than a topic. Questions were written to be answerable and to move the discussion forward, with follow-ups drafted for the points where a panel would otherwise settle into agreement. For the CEO-led panel, Veynuus supported moderation with custom content built around the themes the host wanted the evening to carry.

Audience operations were treated as a design problem rather than a staffing one. Ticketing for the full audience was handled with digital check-in supported by on-site counters, so that the fast path and the fallback existed at the same time rather than the second being improvised once the first faltered. Counters were positioned around the expected arrival pattern rather than spread evenly, because arrivals at events of this kind are heavily concentrated in a short window.

The VIP media room was set up as a controlled space with its own sequencing, so that senior guests could be brought to media in an order that suited both, and so that interviews did not pull principals out of the hall at the moments they were needed in it. Audiovisual work covered LED screens and stage audio, with the visual programme cued to the run of show so that what appeared behind a speaker matched what was happening in front of them.

On the day, delivery was a matter of holding the plan while the room moved. Agenda and session design became a run of show that the stage, the audiovisual desk and the moderators all worked from, so that a change in one place propagated to the others rather than surprising them. Panellist packs were in the hands of the people who needed them before they went on, not during.

Ticketing and check-in ran as a single operation across digital and on-site counters, with full digital check-in coverage for the audience and staffed lanes to absorb the arrivals that screening slowed down. The VIP media room ran on its own schedule, coordinated against the main programme, so that media had access without the hall losing its principals. Audiovisual setup covered screens and stage sound throughout, with cues held against the running order rather than called from memory.

BGS24 was praised for its organisation, clarity and energy. It brought leaders from across sectors into one room to recognise local achievement, and the evening held together as a piece of programming as well as an occasion. More than five hundred attendees were managed, one CEO-led panel was moderated with prepared content, digital check-in covered the full audience, and a dedicated VIP media room operated for the duration.

Beyond the night itself, the event set a benchmark for private sector-led storytelling and convening power in Somalia. That matters for a market where large-scale convening has more often been the work of government or of international organisations. An event of this size, hosted and paid for by a Somali company and delivered to that standard, changes what other Somali companies take to be possible.

The engagement illustrates how closely content and operations are tied together in event work. The quality of a panel depends on preparation done days earlier; the quality of an audience's attention depends on how long they queued and whether they were seated when the programme began. Veynuus's strategic communications practice works across both because separating them tends to produce events that are either well run and forgettable or memorable and chaotic.

• Agenda & session design
• Panelist preparation
• VIP media room management
• Ticketing & check-in
• AV setup & stage