The BGOOD experiment at the ELSA facility in Bonn has been commissioned within the framework of an international collaboration. The experiment pursues a systematic investigation of non-strange and strange meson photoproduction, in particular $t$-channel processes at low momentum transfer. The setup uniquely combines a central almost $4pi$ acceptance BGO crystal calorimeter with a large aperture forward magnetic spectrometer providing excellent detection of both neutral and charged particles, complementary to other setups such as Crystal Barrel, Crystal Ball, LEPS and CLAS.