Congress Center Villach

Inaugurated on 23 October 1971 as the Kongresshaus, the building on the Drau in Villach was conceived as Carinthia's second civic stage, and it has kept that double life ever since: conference floors and exhibition space on three levels, and an auditorium that takes some two thousand people for concerts. Two very different traditions meet in its calendar — the televised Villach carnival, which has made the hall familiar to Austrian viewers for decades, and concerts of the Carinthischer Sommer, the festival that draws its audiences from the lakes and mountains around the town. Touring opera productions play here as well, a night at a time, on their way through the Alpine circuit.