Republica celebrates farewell to the Festhalle Bern

On the Bernexpo site, the 75-year-old Festhalle was recently demolished to make way for the new building. With Primetime Bern and the Bye Bye Fest this farewell was celebrated twice. Republica designed, staged and accompanied both happenings.

Primetime Bern is always held as the official opening ceremony of the public exhibition BEA at Bernexpo. Republica has been responsible for the staging of this event since the first Primetime Bern. Because the demolition of the Festhalle was a special event just around the corner, those responsible at Bernexpo decided to celebrate directly in front of the Festhalle instead of in an existing event location on the Bernexpo site. This was done in the Bye Bye Cube, a scaffolding construction that enclosed a grandstand for 1,000 seats - with a view of the associated show stage, in front of which another 500 visitors were seated.

Walk-in Mini Cubes

Because there, on the occasion of the Bye Bye Festival during the BEA, the old Festhalle was bid farewell. On the one hand, this was done with the evening program and with acts such as Gentleman, Umberto Tozzi, Milky Chance & Co. On the other hand, the Cube also served during the day to review the history of the Festhalle once again - and to find out what Bern will have in the New Festhalle.

The Bye Bye Cube was designed by Bernexpo and Republica to surprise visitors with individual walk-in mini-cubes and bars all around. In the walk-in niches, various quizzes, illustrated retrospectives with fantastic photographs and film excerpts from times gone by enticed visitors.

The outer shell consists of a total of 240 Akiplak panels, which were printed by Bern-based Form AG and mounted on the cube. They show large-scale images and catchphrases from songs - and they already hint at what the new corporate design, also created by Republica, will look like.