Meet CHIG’s very own decorating duo
Interior design wizards Anne-Laure Pellanda and Maico Sandiano are the pair responsible for giving the event its magical ambience, thanks to their carefully thought-out décor. Together, they pool all their imagination and know-how to lend a unique atmosphere to Palexpo. From arenas and the VIP boxes to the stables and other areas of the CHI Geneva, they leave nothing to chance.
It all started for Anne-Laure when she was 15, when she volunteered to work in the arena at the CHI Geneva. Having taken part herself in Jockey Club competitions for a few years, she took charge of the event’s interior design department in 2013, by which time she had become an architect. After managing her team alone to begin with, she has latterly had the support of Maico, who also works in property design.
“To begin with, the department just decorated the obstacles and responded to sponsors’ requests,” explains Anne-Laure. “Then, over the years, we’ve started to decorate everything. It’s got so big now that we’ve divided the work up and shared it out. Maico takes care of the arena and the events, while I’m still doing the interior design, which we do in advance on site, and the VIP boxes. To be honest, though, we’re both everywhere all the time.”
“It’s pretty simple. The step counter on my phone racks up more than 20km every day,” jokes her partner. “From an organisational point of view, Anne-Laure is the only one on the committee, but on an operational level, we all work together, and I now run everything to do with the arena.”
The arena… and beyond
“Decorating the arena involves using lots of things that aren’t fixed in place, like tree planters, flowers, and big decorative items that mark out the course,” says Maico. “We work closely with the arena managers. Then, for each event, we decorate all the obstacles with flowers and items, in line with each sponsor’s colours and the atmosphere and harmonious look that we want.”
When it comes to the award ceremonies, the department’s teams have only a few seconds to dress up a clock or a candlestick in a sponsor’s colours. “It’s really physical,” says Anne-Laure. Speed, efficiency, and good taste are the order of the day, which is not an easy combination to achieve, especially with working hours of 6am to late in the night.
“My job involves working with all the facilities, while taking into account fire safety, for example, and working with what’s in place, whether it’s walls, partitions or carpets,” she continues. “You have to take the sponsor’s colour schemes and marketing into account. Once you’ve taken care of all that, every spectator at Palexpo – VIP or otherwise – sees our decorations wherever they go.”
The department’s core team of around ten people sets about the task of decorating the main, still-empty hall on the Saturday before the competition, making use of a host of accessories fashioned over the autumn. “We get going well in advance,” explains Maico, “creating all the decorative items and ordering and setting out all the plants we’re going to need.” And when the big event gets under way, the department receives some valuable assistance from around 50 volunteers, each of them given very specific jobs to do.
Every year, Anne-Laure and Maico get their heads together to choose a theme for their decorations. So, what’s in store for 2025? “We can’t say yet, and not because we’re keeping it a secret, but because we still haven’t decided,” replies Anne-Laure mischievously, keeping us on tenterhooks.
Sophie Lebeuf
Item added to your cart!
