Not bright: Light show in front of the Bundestag

The Federal Minister for Economic Affairs and Climate in Germany calls on Germans to save energy and provides some savings tips in a campaign worth millions: “Don’t shower for so long!”, “When cooking lid on the pot place!” and “Turn off the wireless router at night!”

While these tips of the energy-saving campaign flickered down from the billboards of the Republic, a part of Berlin’s government district is transformed every evening into a cinema stage: After the onset of darkness, the facade of the Marie-Elisabeth-Lüders-Haus – a building of the German Bundestag – was used for a film, light and sound projection on the history of German parliamentarism. Between 3 July and 3 October, two half-hour screenings were held daily. Five projection surfaces between 21 and 300 square meters were used, while other laser projectors would additionally display motifs on the building. Huge loud speakers filled the audience with sound and were able to marvel at the spectacle from the staircase in front of the Reichstag building.

The show was part of the public relations work of the Bundestag and was intended “to bring the numerous domestic and foreign visitors to Berlin closer to the Reichstag building – now the seat of the German Bundestag – in various facets and historical periods and at the same time to show references to German and especially to parliamentary history” was the answer given by the German Bundestag to an inquiry at the time.

For this purpose, expenditures of a total of 1,160,000 euros (net) were planned, as the German Bundestag announced. This brings the cost of the show to around 12,500 euros per day. A total of 130,000 to 160,000 guests were expected – as o between 700 and 860 per show, in terms of calculation, costs of around 8 euros per visitor were incurred.

In times of energy-saving appeals, the following aspect is also interesting: The expected power consumption for all this year’s shows should amount to around 27 000 kWh – mathematically around 145 kWh per 30 minutes. That’s about the consumption of 29 000 Wi-Fi routers in the same period –  long enough to watch the online compilation of the film and light projection on YouTube, which the German Bundestag had created in 2020. Net cost for the video at that time: 119,000 euros.