Never ones to miss an excuse for a beery booze-up among friends, Germans and
their guests will take to the streets during the soccer World Cup to watch
matches at thousands of open-air venues.
Soccer fans without tickets need not worry about missing out on the action as
towns and cities across the country set aside parks, squares and public
buildings to host openair parties.
Even landmark buildings in the German capital of Berlin will not be spared
from football fever, with the famous Brandenburg Gate becoming the backdrop for
a huge TV screen and dance stage.
"The Berliners, as you will notice, like to be outside," said Hans-Friedrich
Mueller, a spokesman for the Berlin mayor's office. "In the Tiergarten, in the
summer every day is like a barbeque with or without the excuse of the World
Cup."
On the fringes of the Tiergarten, Berlin's equivalent of Central Park,
families lounge on the grass on sunny days, playing frisbee and grilling meat.
Organisers of Berlin's FanFest want to capture this spirit for visiting football
fans.
"We wanted to use this tendency that the Berliners have towards being outside
and offer them an opportunity to watch football somewhere other than on
television.
"This is going to be the biggest public viewing platform in Germany," Mueller
said at the press launch of the enormous openair viewing area in the centre of
Berlin last week.
The venue will have capacity of 70,000 to 100,000 people a day, stretching
from the Brandenburg Gate -- once the symbol of divided Berlin -- along an
arrow-straight boulevard through the Tiergarten to the Siegessaeule or Victory
Column.
Offering a 60-square-metre video square at the gate itself, as well as a
further three huge screens along the length of the park, the venue aims to
create some of the atmosphere which has made lesser-known sports like beach
volleyball such a success.
In 2002, crowds of 5,000 were packed in at a popular public viewing area at
Potsdamer Platz for almost every match of the World Cup broadcast from Japan and
South Korea.
