25,000 Join Opening Celebrations Of AEG’s Mercedes Platz In Berlin, Germany

Daimler AG – Mercedes Platz Berlin
The fireworks on Saturday night, Oct. 13, left no doubt that the entertainment district is now officially open

AEG and Daimler celebrated the inauguration of Mercedes Platz, the new entertainment district around Berlin’s Mercedes-Benz Arena on Saturday, Oct. 13.

In a ceremonial act, Ramona Pop, Berlin’s economic senator, Britta Seeger, member of the board of directors at Daimler AG, and Dan Beckerman, president and CEO of AEG, “handed over” the Mercedes Platz to the public of Berlin.

25,000 people in total attended the festivities, which included open doors to  both the 17,000-capacity Mercedes-Benz Arena as well as the brand new 4,500-cap Verti Music Hall, which got inaugurated a day earlier, Oct. 12, by Jack White, who stopped by on his current European tour.

Visitors got treated to light, LED and water shows, as well as an impressive fireworks display.

Daimler AG – Let the celebrations begin
from left: Britta Seeger (Daimler AG), Ramona Pop (economic senator Berlin), and Dan Beckerman (AEG) press the magic button

Mercedes Platz opened some 28 months after the ground-breaking ceremony in June 2016. The entire project, which also saw the construction of a 14-screen, 2,500 capacity cinema, a 28-lane bowling world, 15 gastronomical units, two Mercedes-Benz showrooms, and two hotels with 372 rooms in total, cost around $231 million.

The entire space comprises 20,500 square meters, and is expected to attract even more visitors to the site next to Berlin’s Spree river than the main attraction: Mercedes-Benz Arena, which opened in 2008, and welcomes some 1.3 million visitors to more than 130 events per year.