BEATLEMANIA OLD ATTRACTION THE MUSEUM OF EROTIC ART, CLOSED AUTUMN 2007 NEW ATTRACTION BEATLEMANIA, OPENED 29 MAY 2009
O
pened in 1992 by German property tycoon Claus Becker, Hamburg’s Erotic Art Museum
started life on a back street of St Pauli
– the city’s red-light district – before mov- ing to the Reeperbahn, the area’s most famous (or infamous) street. Housed in a former hat factory, the museum offered fi ve fl oors of sexual art, from 18th-century Japanese and French erotic prints to work by Otto Dix and Jean Cocteau. Despite attracting 80,000 visitors a year
in its heyday, the museum closed in 2007. But it wasn’t unoccupied for long. In May last year, the site reopened as a museum dedicated to Hamburg’s most famous visi- tors: the Beatles. The new attraction is operated by FKP
Ausstellungs und Betriebsgesellschaft, a limited company owned by Folbert Koopmans, founder of one of Germany’s largest booking and concert agencies. According to the project’s manager, Ulrike Saltern, the company had no hesitation in snapping up the site. “We chose the venue because it’s located among all the places the Beatles lived and played during their time in Hamburg,” she says. “And there are hundreds of thousands of visitors on the Reeperbahn every year. There’s no special story to tell: we saw it, loved it, leased it!” However, the building required a con-
siderable amount of work to bring it up to modern museum standards, says Saltern:
“We had to make a lot of adjustments for health and safety and fi re prevention, and we also had to install air conditioning, all of which delayed the opening.” The original idea also had to be adapted from a one- level concept to one that would work over fi ve fl oors. Overall investment was 2.5m (£2.2m $3.4m). The resulting 1,300sq m (14,000sq ft)
exhibition space, split into 11 rooms, documents the story of the band’s rise to stardom, including original artefacts. Exhibits include a full-size reproduction of the Reeperbahn in the 1960s and a replica backstage area of the Old Star Club, where the band played. There’s a manager’s offi ce containing their fi rst recording contract with German pro- ducer Bert Kaempfert, and an Abbey Road
AM 2 2010 ©cybertrek 2010
The 14,000sq ft Beatlemania Museum, located on Hamburg’s infamous Reeperbahn, has 11 rooms (with original artefacts) that tell the story of the Fab Four’s meteoric rise to fame
Studios attraction, where visitors can sing and record songs. The Bravo Blitz Tour celebrates the out-
break of Beatlemania with a 360-degree fi lm that puts visitors at the centre of a 1,000-strong screaming crowd, while in another room, they can become part of the
famous Sgt Pepper
... album cover. There’s
“The Beatles are still one of the most popu- lar bands in the world”
also a café, store and fi sh and chip shop, all of which can be accessed without a ticket, while the Star Lounge is available for live events and private hire. Although Saltern doesn’t claim to know exactly why the previous museum closed, she specu- lates: “People on the Reeperbahn are [probably] more interested in real erotic [sights]
than in erotic art.” Beatlemania, in contrast, is offering something that is completely dif- ferent from the district’s other attractions while also having universal appeal. “The Beatles are still one of the most popular bands in the world,” she says.
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