After the victory of Austria’s Conchita Wurst at the Eurovision Song Contest 2014, speculation is already rife regarding potential venues for the 2015 contest. The obvious front runner would be the capital Vienna, with the most likely venue being the Vienna Stadthalle: “With a capacity of 16.000 in hall D the Vienna Stadhalle is avaliable for staging ‘media events’, “, says Stadthallen-Boss Wolfgang Fischer. “Where else have you got a venue that can accomodate this many people?” Organising over 250 Shows a year the venue can do fireworks, rain, or whatever you can on stage, and hold Eurovision without problems”.
Also throwing its hat in the ring is the Southern Austrian city of Klagenfurt, with its mayor Christian Scheider offering the Wörthersee-Stadion as a possible location. He pointed out that the venue, which is open-air, has the latest technologies and a capacity of 30.000 people.
Additionally, the Regional Minister for Lower Austria, Elisabeth Kaufmann-Bruckenberger, has offered her region as the host venue, proposing an “Open Air in north east” contest. It offers “a shot at the first open-air final of this event,” she said.
Lastly, the Governor of Tyrol Günther Platter and Innsbruck Mayor Christine Oppitz-Plörer both said in a joint press release Sunday evening that Innsbruck “is available” to host next year’s event.
ORF, next year’s organising broadcaster has already indicated that it expects the cost of hosting the contest to be around 20-40 million EUR. It’s Director General said “We’re so happy with this result, although it wasn’t so predictable. Therefore, we haven’t thought everything through just yet.”
