Gilde Parkbühne

The Gilde Parkbühne is an open-air performance venue beside the Swiss Life Hall in Hannover. Opened in 2002, it developed from a proposal by Wolfgang Besemer and Michael Lohmann for a permanent summer stage, with support from the Gilde brewery. The experience of outdoor cultural events during Expo 2000 helped bring the project forward. Its permanent structures include a covered stage and a spectator stand with approximately seven hundred seats. Depending on the arrangement, the 3,500-square-metre site accommodates around 3,300 seated visitors or up to five thousand with standing areas. Programming includes rock, pop and classical concerts, comedy, musicals, theatre and cinema. Hannover's open-air summer belongs in part to a white fabric canopy pitched over a meadow beside the Swiss Life Hall, opened in 2002 and named for the city's brewery. Some four thousand stand on the grass and about seven hundred sit under cover; since 2013 the neighbouring sports ground has been pressed into service for crowds several times that size. Concerts fill most of the calendar, alongside an open-air film festival each summer.