City of Chemnitz also successful in 2022 in the city centre competition "Ab in die Mitte - Die City-Offensive Sachsen"
Project entry "Augmented Reality - Experiences for Chemnitz city centre" wins two awards and receives prize money totalling 22,000 euros
At today's closing event of this year's "Ab in die Mitte - Die City-Offensive Sachsen" competition at Messe Leipzig, the city of Chemnitz once again had reason to celebrate. The jury was won over twice with the project entry "Augmented Reality - Experiences for Chemnitz city centre". The project was awarded 3rd place overall in the competition and the SMWA's special "Retail" prize and received two prize money awards totalling 22,000 euros to finance the project. This year's competition motto "Creatively out of the crisis - rethinking city centres" was intended to motivate renewed commitment to preserving and strengthening Saxony's city centres. A total of 33 Saxon municipalities took part in the competition with 34 projects. The Free State of Saxony awarded prize money totalling 300,000 euros. This year's focus was on the digital networking of stakeholders.
The entry submitted by Chemnitz is a digitalisation project that creates a link between the digital and analogue worlds. Based on established games such as "Pokemon-Go", you move through Chemnitz city centre using an app on your mobile phone, solve tasks and receive rewards that lead you to participating partners - such as retailers, restaurateurs or service providers - and are intended to create incentives to buy. The application can be used flexibly and in a variety of ways for event formats, such as the Chemnitz Christmas market, or to market certain city centre districts and shopping streets.
Users are given the opportunity to become more aware of shops, facilities, institutions and their product ranges and offers. At the same time, less frequented areas can be strengthened. The development and realisation of the app is planned for the coming year.
Steve Rettcke and Sandra Kothe from the Chemnitz agency KOPFSATZ and Jens Preissler from SWA Werbeartikel GmbH are the initiators and developers of the project.
"In cooperation with the city of Chemnitz, a concrete SmartCity project is to be implemented with reference to retail, gastronomy and service providers, which at the same time contributes to the holistic further development of Chemnitz city centre and its multifunctionality," says project coordinator Florian Hegewald from the City of Chemnitz's business division.
The city centre competition "Ab in die Mitte - Die City-Offensive Sachsen" is an initiative within the framework of public-private partnerships to give cities and municipalities new impetus for urban renewal and thereby increase the attractiveness of city centres.