Barclaycard Arena set to open for first time in a year

Hamburg’s Barclaycard Arena is preparing to open its doors for the first time in a year to host the Restart concert series, organised by Hamburg Concerts.

The concerts, organised as part of the government’s Restart Culture funding programme, are due to take place between 2 and 7 May with artists including Thees Uhlmann, Versengold, Selig and Madsen, and will mark the promoter’s 10th anniversary.

The 16,000-capacity arena will be reconfigured into a compact theatre setting designed for a maximum of 650 guests and taking into account the current hygiene regulations.

The venue and promoter have revealed an extensive hygiene plan which would require guests to wear a masks in the hall, maintain social distancing between two-person seating groups, follow a one-way system in the venue and present a negative coronavirus test upon entry.

According to a statement from Barclaycard Arena, attendees will be able to take a rapid test or a supervised self-test on site, but have been strongly advised to take advantage of the free citizen tests at their place of residence or work to avoid waiting times at the venue.

Hamburg Concerts has submitted the 100-page hygiene plan to the relevant authorities to carry out the event as a model test to test alternative protective measures and concepts in accordance with the current Hamburg Corona Protection Ordinance.

“We are firmly convinced that we can safely organise the events for all participants,” says Diak Haring, MD of Hamburg Concerts.

“We are firmly convinced that we can safely organise the events for all participants”

“The applications for implementation have been sent to all relevant offices in the City of Hamburg and we are ready to talk. We expect feedback from the authorities by mid-April and are in good spirits that we can now open the concert season in Hamburg with the restart series.”

Germany was given further proof that events can be organised safely during the ongoing coronavirus pandemic after the artistic director of the Berlin Philharmonic shared preliminary findings from the orchestra’s recent pilot concert which show zero infections among the 1,000 people who attended.

Steve Schwenkglenks, VP and MD of the Barclaycard Arena, adds: “Berlin has shown the way – events with a well thought-out hygiene concept are feasible. The more than 100-page hygiene concept, which we developed together with well-known experts, gives us the security of being able to hold events responsibly.

“This fact, coupled with the rapid test concepts and the vaccinations, which will hopefully start sooner, allow me to look very positively into the future. We are well prepared and look forward to welcoming spectators to the arena for the first time in over a year.”

Tickets start from €45.95 and seats can be booked for one or two people.

The Restart concert series was originally planned for March this year but due to the continuing number of infections, it was postponed until May.

Another postponement could be likely if parliament passes new legislation which would allow chancellor Angela Merkel’s coalition to impose a nightly curfew in areas where the seven-day incidence rate of infections surpasses 100 cases per 100,000 people for three days in a row.

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