More than one million visitors attended the Armed Forces’ National Day celebrations again this year – this time mainly at the virtual Heroes’ Square“www.nationalfeiertag2020.jetzt”and in front of the television sets during the live coverage by ORF and private TV stations.
“I am delighted that we have succeeded in bringing our armed forces into the living rooms of so many Austrians despite the challenging conditions of the current coronavirus crisis. We have successfully conceived and organized by far the largest hybrid event in Austria in 2020,” said Defence Minister Klaudia Tanner. The virtual Heroes’ Square “nationalfeiertag2020.jetzt” alone recorded more than 500,000 hits by 2 p.m., while the ORF live broadcast had a reach of 200,000 to 250,000 viewers (source: AGTT / GfK TELETEST), in addition to the extensive live coverage by private TV stations.
This time – in the 25th anniversary year of the exhibition at Heldenplatz – the event was open to visitors as a hybrid event with live coverage by ORF and private TV stations as well as virtually at “nationalfeiertag2020.jetzt”. The well-known Austrian film director and Oscar winner Stefan Ruzowitzky created short films about the core themes of the exhibition as well as film portraits of soldiers.
The general motto of the military celebrations for the national holiday was “We protect Austria!” – not least due to the 100th anniversary of the Federal Constitution – and presented the Austrian Armed Forces as the armed force of the Republic of Austria. The topics of this year’s exhibition, which were presented in more detail both in the short films and in virtual theme islands, included information on military national defense as the core task of the Armed Forces, disaster control, the current corona mission (with the militia deployed for the first time) and the special anniversary “60 years of foreign deployment”.
Four spectacular 360° VR panoramas were at the heart of the virtual hero site: a Pandur Evolution armored personnel carrier, the C-130 Hercules transport aircraft in the MEDEVAC configuration, the S-70 Black Hawk and the Puch G Sandviper of the fighter command. These panoramas are made up of a total of 1,200 individual images and offer many unprecedented images in this form on the Bundesheer website.
In addition, over three million ad impressions were generated for the virtual Heldenplatz“www.nationalfeiertag2020.jetzt” with images of the military celebrations at Heldenplatz and spectacular 360° panoramas of large military equipment. The website will remain online.
