Totally Stockholm 1
Cirkus is an iconic part of Djurgården, built in
the early 1890 by the architect Ernst Haegglund and initially opening in 1892 as, well, a circus. Circuses aren’t quite as popular as they used to be, and over the intervening century and a bit it’s become one of Stockholm’s major venues for concerts and theatre (and in a real sign of how things have changed, will even host Sweden’s first-ever hologram concert, featuring ‘Whitney Houston’, next year). But this decade’s been one of change for the venue, having been purchased by the Pop House concern (which means ABBA’s Björn Ulvaeus is now a part-owner) and they’ve just undergone a renovation, overseen by CEO Ingmari Pagenkemper. We caught up with her about what’s new at Cirkus. You started at Cirkus in autumn last year, and the renovations took place this summer. Can you give us a rough timeline of how that has played out? I started on September 1 last year, and two hours after I started I was presented with the project of the renovation of Cirkus. So I started to work with this project, and I suggested changes to the plans and the board said ok. As Cirkus is a listed building, you have to apply to a number of authorities before you make any changes. So it took about six months to get approval from all the various authorities, and I think we started to renovate in June, and finished in August. It’s more than just the visible, it’s not just the furniture and the colours on the walls and so it’s also the ventilation for the entire building, and the entire electrical system. It was all old, so it was necessary. That’s the boring part, it’s very expensive, and nobody can see it [laughs], but it has to be done. Before we talk about what’s actually changed, what was it about the venue that required the changes? What were the problems that need to be fixed? What were the new things you wanted to bring in? I wanted to bring in some care and love and fantasy. Nothing had been done since the ‘90s, so you can imagine. The bathrooms and so on were still functioning, but they looked like shit. The same for the walls, the kitchen, everything, it was just worn-out, it needed to be done. So can you give me a run-through of what is new at Cirkus? One of the new things is our rental event hall, which is a very nice room upstairs with a capacity of about 120 people, that looked like hell, and we redid it completely, and now it’s our VIP area, where you have direct access to the arena. We also changed all the chairs inside the arena, which is something like 400 new chairs, as the old ones were squeaky and not really comfortable. All the bathrooms were redone, we redid the entire restaurant, with a completely new kitchen, and the interior redecoration. So would you say for your guests, there’s nothing that’s so spectacularly new, but the basics that contribute to a good guest experience have been re-done and fixed-up? It would depend on how often you’ve been here. I think if you were quite a regular visitor, you would say it’s quite spectacular, as there are things like the big bar in the restaurant in the middle, that wasn’t there before. The kitchen, which was a closed kitchen, is now open. But I feel that it has been done in such a tasteful and respectful way, it feels like it’s looked like this forever, because it fits in in such a beautiful way. So it feels like a lot of the biggest changes are focused on the restaurant part, both in the renovations and in the new programme, of how it’s going to work. You’ve said it will be open now outside of just the shows, where as previously it only opened in connection with the shows. Is that an attempt to make Cirkus more of a place where people can come to spend time, have dinner, relax and hang out, rather than just coming for events? Definitely. That’s my dream, that we can have a restaurant and bar that is a destination in itself, where people come because they enjoy the atmosphere, and the cocktails and everything. And I think we have a good chance of accomplishing this, as Djurgården has around 16 million visitors a year, though 14.5 million of those come during the summer, and during fall and winter it’s quite sparse. I’ve been in this business too long to be naïve, and we won’t be able to attract 150 dinner guests on a stormy Tuesday in April if there’s nothing on in the arena to bring them in, I don’t think we’ll ever get there. But on the other hand, we probably won’t have a Tuesday night where nothing is on. That’s why I can have the balls to open the restaurant every day, because we have so much booked in these two arenas, so we have to stay open every day. 11 Photo: Love Strandell Photo: Love Strandell