CTS Eventim lands Vienna Arena project

Article posted by Coliseum, November 13^th, 2024

Image: APA and Architekten Kronaus, Mitterer & Gallister

German group CTS Eventim has been awarded a contract to develop a new arena in Vienna, Austria after a court last year overturned a deal for Oak View Group (OVG) to helm the project.

Die Presse said that more than a year after the court overturned the award decision for the planned Wien Holding Arena in St. Marx to OVG, the only other bidder has now won the race for the major project.

The contract for construction and operation has been awarded to CTS Eventim. The company operates in the leisure-events market, with ticketing and live entertainment and is headquartered in Bremen. It is one of the 50 companies comprising the MDAX index and one of the 40th to 90th largest companies in Germany by market capitalization.

The opening of the 20,000-capacity arena was originally planned for 2024, but the City of Vienna began looking for a partner in 2021 due to escalating costs. The venue is now not expected to open until 2030 at the earliest.

OVG was identified as the ‘best bidder’ in July 2023 following a tender process staged by government-owned corporation Wien Holding. However, later that year, the award was “declared void for formal reasons” by Vienna Regional Court after an objection by rival bidder CTS Eventim.

The project has been designed by Viennese architects Christian Kronaus, Peter Mitterer and Reinhardt Gallister.

It was recently announced in the Official Journal of the European Union (EU) that the new award decision had been made by Wien Holding to allow CTS Eventim to develop the arena.

A spokesman for Wien Holding explained that no statement could be made about the award for the time being.

“There are standstill periods, and we will of course stick to these,” it said. Details of the arena project and the reason for the new tender not being carried out could only be given after these periods had expired, according to the spokesman.

The EU Official Journal said the city of Vienna is to contribute €145.9 million towards construction of the new arena, which is expected to cost €800 million overall.

The spokesman also did not want to comment on this amount. The question of whether and where the CTS offer was changed from the original submission is also open. Wien Holding also referred to standstill periods on this point.

The group operates locations in Germany and other European countries. Ö-Ticket is also part of the European CTS Eventim Group.

Vienna’s biggest existing indoor arena is the 16,000-capacity Wiener Stadthalle.

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