2006 FIFA Fan Fest™ Germany
The 2006 FIFA World Cup Germany™ proved it once again – football is all about emotions.
The fans celebrated in a peaceful, joyful and colourful manner and in keeping with the official slogan, “A time to make friends™”. The popularity of these sites exceeded the expectations of the Host Cities, the LOC and FIFA by far, and numerous events in late summer showed that the Fan Fest has become a new football phenomenon that will live on way beyond the FIFA World Cup™. The Fan Fest has significally contributed to the overwhelming success of the 2006 FIFA World Cup™, which will be remembered as the “World Cup of the Fans”.
The cities allocated their most historic and scenic squares for the events, which were decorated with the official look. Each city suddenly had two official venues – the stadium and the downtown Fan Fest. A summer night’s dream became true for 64 exciting games.
More than any other factor, the FIFA Fan Fest™ boosted Germany’s international profile. The twelve Host Cities’ tremendous efforts shaped the FIFA Fan Fest™ into colourful and highly entertaining events. In turn, the Fan Fest altered the face of the cities.
Many fans from Germany’s bordering countries made the trip just to go to the Fan Fest. Even without the certainty of a ticket, they were sure to capture the unique atmosphere. In Leipzig, for example, 800,000 fans travelled to the city, only 215,000 of whom actually possessed a match ticket. The figures in other Host Cities were comparable. With figures like these, the twelve cities were certainly on the winning side of the event. The Fan Fest also made business sense. Figures for food and drink sales were astronomical: 3.5 million litres of beer, millions of non-alcoholic beverages and 3.5 million bratwursts were consumed and also the Official Partners Coca-Cola and Anheuser Busch could benefit from such numbers. All four Top Partners achieved high contact numbers with immense promotional value. But also local companies benefited from the success of the Fan Fest as local sponsor, caterer or retailer.
However, the true world champions were the fans, who soaked up this once-in-a-lifetime experience, whether in the sold-out stadiums or on the packed squares.
City: Berlin
Venue: Straße des 17. Juni Capacity: 100,000+ visitors
City: Dortmund
Venue: Friedensplatz and Westfalenhallen. Capacity: 30.000/10.000 visitors
City: Frankfurt
Venue: MainArena Capacity: 30.000 visitors
City: Gelsenkirchen
Venue: Glückauf-Kampfbahn Capacity: 25.000 visitors. Capacity was increased once for further 28.000 fans from England
City: Hamburg
Venue: Heiligengeistfeld in St Pauli Capacity: 70.000 visitors
City: Hannover
Venue: Waterloo Square Capacity: 20.000 visitors
City: Kaiserslautern
Venue: Stiftsplatz and Barbarossastraße. Capacity: 15.000 visitors
City: Köln
Venue: Heumarkt and Roncalliplatz next to Cologne cathedral Capacity: 20.000 visitors
City: Leipzig
Venue: Augustusplatz Capacity: 20.000 visitors
City: München
Venue: Olympic Park Munich Capacity: 30.000 visitors
City: Nürnberg
Venue: Volksfestplatz at Dutzendteich (close to the stadium) Capacity: 40.000 visitors
City: Stuttgart
Venue: Schlossplatz in the city center Capacity: 60.000 visitors