Visiting Azerbaijan’s Crystal Hall – Baku

The streets of Baku are hung with banners and pennants to promote the recently completed Eurovision Song Contest. At street level, huge billboards give details of an upcoming series of concerts starring Jennifer Lopez, Shakira and Rhianna.

All these were held in the newly constructed Crystal Hall, sat next to National Flag Square on a small promontory not far from the city centre.

The headland is easy to find as its home to the largest flag in Europe. Rising 162 metres above the city and measuring 70 by 35 metres, this was once the largest flag in the world.

I always thought it was a North Korean flag in the DMZ, but the largest is now in Dushanbe, Tajikistan.

The Crystal Hall

We were shown round by the venue director, who explained the refurbishment work.

During the Eurovision contest the arena sat 17,000 people, but the capacity was being increased to 23,000. The extra space was coming from all the saved backstage area that was required by so many Eurovision contestants and their entourages.  It will become the largest roofed stadium in Azerbaijan.

Whilst the backstage area will be smaller, it’s also being made considerably more luxurious, to cater to the demands and whims of international stars.

Aside from concerts it’s intended to be used for sporting and public events. The German company that originally built it has designed the floor space to be flexible enough for a number of configurations. They originally built the entire complex in just 10 months.

We also got to meet the German events director who is training up the local Azerbaijan crew to take over his role. He was kind enough to commandeer a couple of electric carts to save us the long walk back to the coach.

Since we visited Jennifer Lopez, Shakira and Rihanna have all performed there. Tickets sold from €35 and the venues were sold out.

Here’s a decent quality video of Jennifer Lopez, taken from the newly arranged seating. It’s possible they need to work on their security a little as the film-maker seems to have smuggled in both a camera and tripod:

This trip was arranged by the Azerbaijan Tourist Board, as part of the United Nations World Tourism Organisation Silk Road Project.