Opening Anton Paar’s APAC Technical Center.

The occasion

Anton Paar GmbH, the Austrian precision-measurement manufacturer, opened its Asia-Pacific Technical Center in Kuala Lumpur on 20 January 2025. The building runs to 5,000 m² across four floors, two of them occupied by Anton Paar, and houses a 400 m² laboratory showroom with dedicated laboratories for polymers and plastics, food and animal feed, and X-ray diffraction, plus training rooms for at least fifty people and a 100 kW photovoltaic system.

Around a hundred guests attended the opening. Wonder Space produced the ceremony.

Two protocols in one room

The guest list is what made this event distinct. Present were Dato' Haji Mohammad Yusof bin Apdal, Malaysia's Deputy Minister of Science, Technology and Innovation; Andreas Launer, the Austrian Ambassador; and Reinhart Zimmermann, the Trade Attaché.

That combination means two protocol orders applying at once — Malaysian government protocol for the Deputy Minister, and diplomatic protocol for the Ambassador and his delegation. They govern reception at the door, the order of announcements, seating, the sequence of addresses, and the arrangement of principals in the official photograph. Neither is negotiable, and both are visible to everyone present who knows them.

Producing an event like this is mostly a documentation exercise before it is a staging exercise: agree the order, confirm it with the offices involved, brief the escorts, and rehearse the route.

The building as the centrepiece

At a facility opening the building is the product, which changes what the ceremony has to do. A backdrop-and-stage setup shows the guests a backdrop; the point here was the laboratories. The production task is routing a hundred people through specialised spaces — a working XRD laboratory is not a function room — while keeping the group together, keeping the principals on schedule, and putting the official photograph somewhere that shows the facility rather than a banner.

Anton Paar's Regional Director APAC, Astrid Greiner, described the investment as setting "the next milestone for growth and technical expertise" for the region.

Producing an opening of your own

We produce corporate openings, press conferences, media events and partnership ceremonies across Malaysia, including events under ministerial and diplomatic protocol. The approach is set out on the corporate and press page.