360° Bundesliga Show

“As a child, I used to come here with my father, and he, in turn, had been brought here by his own father.”

These lines from the Borussia anthem are among the finest in football culture. And as such, they form part of our cultural heritage. They epitomise the romance of football. And they express a special sense of community. All-encompassing. Tangible. Unifying. Endearing. Authentic. The German Football Museum has adopted this central theme in its new exhibition on the history of the Bundesliga. Club-neutral. Cross-generational.
The narrative unfolds on several levels, which in turn is reflected in the layout of the exhibition space: 360 degrees.
The narrative theme is the story of a child who has come to the stadium with his father, who in turn was taken there by his own father. This narrative thread accompanies the striking images, sounds and emotions from 58 years of the Bundesliga.

Beginning in an era when spectators were still smoking men in trench coats and their idols were Helmut Rahn, Uwe Seeler or Franz Beckenbauer; through an era in which footballers became pop stars and advertising icons, Günter Netzer emerged from the depths of the room and the first women were spotted in the crowd; past gruelling relegation battles in Nuremberg and Kaiserslautern, as well as the great dramas of the past, such as FC Schalke 04’s ‘four-minute championship’ and Hamburger SV’s relegation; right up to the family-friendly event featuring modern global stars like Robert Lewandowski and today’s German ‘Clásico’; Borussia Dortmund versus Bayern Munich.
These images, sounds and emotions are heightened by reflecting on the progress made in the media; from the Saturday Bundesliga round-up on the radio, through the ubiquitous television coverage, right up to live data tracking and the Virtual Bundesliga.

Anticipation. Nerves. An explosion of emotion. Fascination. Memories. Recognition, leading to rediscovery.

In the 360-degree show, visitors feel the pulse of the Bundesliga with every fibre of their being. On this journey through time spanning six decades, everyone recognises themselves time and again, because they have experienced these situations themselves, in one form or another.
The boy sticking Panini stickers into his album. The ‘Sportschau’ programme beginning. Time that passes. Enthusiasm that endures – even as perceptions, channels and consumption patterns have changed. The Panini album has given way to the PlayStation; idols are no longer just collected, but also controlled. People no longer just watch football, but increasingly look at second screens and play the DFL Fantasy Manager.

Technically, the production is an innovation. The 3D mapping technology combines the fictional story with the original historical images. Combined with the width of the projection surface, which exceeds the human eye’s normal field of vision, and a matrix of 433 individual hexagons, it enables impressive shifts in perspective and creates cinematic effects that are vivid and captivating. The 8D sound in the in-chair headphones gives the audience the sensation of receiving sound from different directions, thereby enhancing the 360-degree experience. And in the end, the circle is complete.

“I used to come here with my father when I was a child, and he’d been brought here by his own father too.”