The venue management company Oak View Group (OVG) has been opted for leading the construction and operation of a new arena in Vienna, the capital of Austria.
Named “best bidder” for the project, OVG won out after an 18-month bidding process led and established by the City of Vienna’s Wien Holding company. The bidders were also expected to provide convincing sustainability and health and safety concepts. Winning the bid, OVG is set to begin the construction in 2025 with a schedule to complete it in late 2029.
The new arena will be designed to host leading sports and entertainment activities as well as events for internationally recognized touring artists with a capacity of 20,000 audience. With a total construction cost of €384m ($429m), the project is now going through the next phase that will include planning, zoning, and environmental impact assessments before the contract signing later this year. The City of Vienna has selected architects Kronaus/Mitterer/Gallister to design the arena in Neu Marx district which is famous for cultural and creative industries, with sustainability, ecology and climate protection to be at the heart of the process.
“Vienna is a capital market that deserves one of Europe’s top entertainment arenas,” OVG CEO Tim Leiweke said. “As the gateway between Western and Eastern Europe and again ranked as the world’s most liveable city this year, it needs an arena that can attract the world’s best events.”
Francesca Bodie, president of business development and lead negotiator on behalf of OVG said, “We have huge admiration for the City of Vienna for having the vision to deliver continental Europe’s best arena, as well as the initiative to find a partner with a proven record of delivering outstanding new arenas that minimise the cost to taxpayers and prioritize innovation and sustainability.”
Leiweke also pointed out that OVG built 7 new arenas in the world in the last two years, emphasizing the company’s commitment to the project in Vienna.
Some of OVG’s new and latest projects within these two years include Seattle’s Climate Pledge Arena, New York’s UBS Arena, and Acrisure Arena in Palm Springs, California, as well as the highly anticipated Las Vegas venue.
According to Pollstar, to which OVG operates as a parent company, while the City of Vienna acknowledges that OVG cooperates closely with Live Nation, an important part of the bidding process was a guarantee that the arena would be open to all event organizers, “and that there are no exclusive rights for certain event organizers,” as it states on the City’s website, which adds that ticketing, too, must be designed in such a way as “not to impair the existing competition among the various ticket providers.”
