Schmidts Tivoli

Schmidts Tivoli is a 612-seat house on Hamburg’s Spielbudenplatz, where guest pop, indie, rock, R&B, jazz and folk shows land in a room designed for close-range theatre. Its octagonal auditorium draws on a circus arena, with the stage extending into the audience; gold columns, round mirrors and murals give the room a preserved turn-of-the-century character. Expect a theatrical frame around the concert, with the crowd brought unusually close to the performers.

A beer garden beneath the theatre

Schmidts Tivoli opened on September 1, 1991, when Corny Littmann and Professor Norbert Aust took on the former Zillertal, initially alongside designer Johannes Wienand and restaurateur Sture Salomon. The Gründerzeit building began as an open-air beer garden set between front and rear houses. A gallery and roof arrived in 1896; Zillertal then occupied the site from 1925 through 1990. During the 1991 conversion, the team uncovered the gold columns, large mirrors and wall paintings behind dark wood panelling, bringing the interior close to its earlier appearance while adding contemporary stage technology.

Its first production, Marlene Jaschke ist Carmen, premiered on September 19, 1991 and ran for 96 performances into August 1992. A later musical landmark arrived in September 2003 with the premiere of Heiße Ecke, the St. Pauli musical that became the house’s long-running in-house production. The venue also entered a concert-focused chapter in February 2007 through the Hamburg Sounds radio-concert series with NDR 90,3, bringing artists including Stefan Gwildis, Pohlmann and Michy Reincke to the Tivoli stage.

The concert experience

This is a producing theatre first, with German-language musicals, music revues and comedy forming the core programme, alongside guest concerts. The stage’s thrust into the octagonal room is the physical advantage: performers face a compact, enveloping audience instead of a long, distant hall. Schmidts Tivoli also operates as a Verzehrtheater, so drinks and snacks can be enjoyed at the seat during a performance. Glanz & Gloria, the venue’s cocktail bar, sits within the house for a pre-show stop.