Capitol in Offenbach: A Versatile Event Location with Celebrity Performances and Corporate Events

On October 21, the Capitol celebrates in Offenbach the 25th anniversary in its current function as a versatile event location. A colorful quarter of a century: In February 2000, Thomas Gottschalk used the dome of the Offenbach Capitol to look back on five decades of television history for ZDF and brought together the former “mother of the nation” Inge Meysel, the legendary rock band Deep Purple with their super hit “Smoke on the water” and finally the “beast” Joan Collins from the eighties cult series “Denver Clan” on a stage.

2015 represents the British top group Coldplay their album “A Head Full Of Dreams” there. Other internationally successful musicians such as James Blunt, One Republic, Jess Glynne, Eminem, Chris Rea, Kim Wilde and Maroon 5 have also been guests at the city’s event venue. In autumn 2021, the Capitol will be the stage for the presentation of the Hessian Film Prize, with Volker Schlöndorff present. The Oscar winner, to whom an exhibition is being dedicated in Wiesbaden, the city of his birth, received the honorary award at the time.

But the Offenbach entertainment location is not only a stage for concerts, shows and award ceremonies, companies have long since discovered the house as a special place for presentations and company celebrations. For example, Capitol Managing Director Birgit von Hellborn remembers the premiere of a now popular “Tischlein, deck dich” surprise, where the flying buffet for a company event is not carried through the hall by service staff on trays, as is usually the case under this heading . For the first time in the Capitol, a set table for 80 people floated from the ceiling into the hall – lowered by the Capitol staff. Since everything worked without problems, this special form of the flying snack has been regularly ordered by companies since then, according to Hellborn.

Company events as cross-financing

According to the city, almost all DAX companies have already booked rooms on Offenbach’s Goethestraße, including Mercedes Benz, Deutsche Bank, the European Central Bank ECB, the airport operator Fraport, Deutsche Lufthansa, Microsoft and many other companies. “These references impressively underline how popular our urban event location is with the big players in its industry,” says Mayor Felix Schwenke (SPD), who is also head of the economic department.

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For him, the special atmosphere of the Capitol is always an advantage in his efforts to market Offenbach as an attractive location. Almost every second booking in the former synagogue is non-public: From October 1998 to the end of 2022 alone, almost 1,130 company events such as presentations, balls, conferences and gala dinners, company meetings and Christmas parties, says Schwenke. “The company events are important as cross-financing for the concerts,” says Capitol Managing Director von Hellborn. The Capitol offers three rooms of different sizes on more than 1500 square meters. In cooperation with event agencies, events for up to 1800 guests are possible.

According to Hellborn, the Capitol also tries to realize unusual customer wishes. For example, the entire Great Hall was shot for a company party, and in another case, an entire flight simulator was lifted onto a side stage. A large corporation wanted the actually colorful house to be completely white, which is why numerous walls were covered, another company wanted a Roman-style villa, which the Capitol forces quickly created in the atrium.

Taking private and public events, concerts and celebrations together, from October 1998 to 2022 inclusive, the Capitol hosted more than 2,340 events with a total of 1.43 million guests. The popular venue was originally the synagogue of the Jewish community in Offenbach. From 1916 until the pogrom night of 1938, the building also served as a community center and teaching house. Under the rule of the National Socialists it was a cinema, concert hall and meeting place for the Nazis. After the end of the Second World War, the Jewish community finally gave the building to the city with the request that it be used appropriately.