Do you like amusement parks?

Tivoli turns 160:
Passing a Milestone - All Year
In 2003 it will be 160 years since the King of Denmark gave Georg Carstensen his royal permission to run an amusement park in the heart of Copenhagen. "When the populace are enjoying themselves they forget about politicking," the widely travelled Georg Carstensen reasoned to Christian VIII who fully appreciated the wisdom in letting his subjects ride the merry-go-round instead of plotting regicide.

This year, Tivoli will be commemorating the Gardens' pivotal role in the Danish world of entertainment and its status as a true heavyweight among Danish cultural institutions with a festive array of special arrangements, top notch concerts and completely new entertainment offers along with a permanent discount on year-round passes (priced at only DKK 160 for the entire year of 2003!). One of this year's highlights will be the visit from the New York City Ballet who will appear at the Tivoli Concert Hall and captivate audiences' hearts for a full 7 days in September. Add to this our Friday Rock Concerts featuring Kim Wilde, INXS, Bonnie Raitt, Kool & The Gang and The Pointer Sisters, and the July Jazz Festival with a roster of international luminaries, all to be announced on April 23rd, 2003.

The celebration will not stop at the unique Tivoli lighting, the contrast to the bustling metropolis just outside the Gardens, the music, and the many amusements. Tivoli's restaurants will also offer culinary quality and innovation. Thus it is a special pleasure this year to welcome Paul Cunningham, one of the country's most outstanding chefs; he will revive 'Glassalen' as an unparalleled restaurant from the very opening. His new establishment, called The Paul, will add yet another quality restaurant to the assortment of innovative offers introduced in the Gardens in recent years.
Pizza aficionados are in luck as well. This year, Tivoli patrons can look forward to La Vecchia Signora with its home cooked and carefully prepared Italian cuisine. Here you can savour the city's best pizzas baked in an authentic stone oven heated with beechwood and sawdust, giving the crust its genuine, lightly smoked taste and aroma.

Amusement-wise, the big news is that the old floating tubs have been transformed into The Mine. Here, kids and grownups alike can delight in a fantastic universe with a gigantic dragon girl, a waterfall, and a glittering diamond tunnel as well as the grottos with their crazy scaffolding and peculiar tools. The Mine is located in the roller coaster mountain.

Tourist attraction and national symbol
Tivoli has been a favourite meeting place for Copenhageners ever since it opened in 1843, when Tivoli was outside Copenhagen's city boundaries, near the city moat and ramparts.

During the 1880s, Copenhagen grew too big to be contained within its city boundaries, and gradually Tivoli became surrounded by the city. Today, the Gardens lie like an oasis in the middle of Copenhagenwith Tivoli Lake as a surviving part of the old fortifications.

Georg Carstensen named the Gardens after a Parisian amusement establishment which in turn had been named after the town of Tivoli outside Rome. The architecture was inspired by the outlandish and the exotic, something that is still clearly visible in the Chinese-inspired Pantomime Theatre (1874), in the pagoda-like Chinese Tower(1900) and in the Moorish-inspired restaurant Nimb (1909).

Several of the buildings in Tivoli are characterised today by the light pavilion-like style which was the dominant style in Tivoli when it opened.


Tivoli provides inspiration all over the world
Over the years, Tivoli has inspired many people and been the inspiration for many creations. Hans Christian Andersen got the idea for his fairy tale about the Nightingale in Tivoli. Walt Disney drew inspiration for Disneyland from Tivoli during several visits in the 1950s, and a couple of Japanese officials were so taken by Tivoli that they had an almost identical copy built in 1997 in Kurashiki near Osaka with the help of Tivoli's drawing office.

Tivoli's evocative lighting is often mentioned as being particularly inspirational. Tivoliis illuminated by 115,000 incandescent lights casting a warm, soft light over the Gardens' flowers and trees. Neon lights are banned. Illumination was one of the basic ingredients in Georg Carstensen's Tivoli, and so it is today. Tivoli's lighting has given its name to the Christmas lights on Park Avenuein New York, for instance, known as ?'Tivoli Lights'.

An eco-friendly garden
Not only does Tivoli have one of the world's most evocative illuminations, it is also one of the most eco-friendly. For Tivoli has its own eco lamp using 5 and 15 Watt bulbs, and the approx. 30,000 bulbs which are replaced every year are sent for recycling, so the metal of the screw section can be reused.

In August 1999, Tivoli became one of the first theme parks in the world to be environmentally certified to meet the ISO-14001 International Standard and, in 2000 Tivoli introduced solar power as an energy source for one of its amusements - the first amusement park in Europe to do so. Waste food from the restaurants is used for pig fodder and can feed approx. 140 pigs a year!

Meet the Danes
Tivoli is a garden of immense variety. The young, the old, single people, families with children and business people come to Tivoli to enjoy themselves and celebrate occasions such as birthdays, wedding anniversaries, the end of term, the end of the working day, Bank Holidays, other anniversaries, Midsummer Night, Christmas, etc.

Even Denmark's royal family like celebrating in Tivoli Gardens. Queen Margrethe celebrated her 60th birthday here in 2000, and little Prince Nikolai enjoyed his second birthday party in 2001.

Approx. 65 per cent of Tivoli's summer visitors are Danes. During ?'Christmas in Tivoli', Danes account for around 80 per cent of the guests.

The very essence of Danish "hygge"
Some people maintain that when Danes want to enjoy the company of friends and family - indulge in the so-called "hygge", a uniquely Danish concept somewhere between "cosiness" and "conviviality" - they eat! And there is something in that. There are restaurants in Tivoli catering to all tastes - whether your preference is modern fusion cuisine, fast food or traditional Danish food.

Several of the restaurants are nearly as old as Tivoli itself, and some have been run by the same family for generations. Amongst the restaurants with a long history are: Café Ketchup, the former Divan 1 and Divan 2 (the name goes back to 1843), Det Kinesiske Tårn (1900), Nimb (originally Basaren from 1843), Bagatellen (1883) and Grøften (1874), where the famous and the wannabe-famous meet to see and be seen.
Approx. 10,000 people can dine at the same time at Tivoli's 30 restaurants.

World-class entertainment
The world's greatest soloists, orchestras and companies have drawn Danes by the thousands to the OldGarden. Sting, the Beach Boys, Phil Collins and Cherhave all performed on the ?'Plænen' open-air stage, and jazz stars such as Ray Charles, Diane Reeves, Natalie Cole and Tony Bennett have entertained in Tivoli during the Copenhagen Jazz Festival, held every year in July.

Anne Sofie Mutter, Kiri Te Kanawa, Nigel Kennedy and Gidon Kremer as well as big ballet companies, such as the New York City Ballet, the Danish Royal Ballet and the Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater have all given impressive performances, often with the Danish queen, who is a ballet fan, as guest on the opening night.

More than 2,000 free events
Over 100 classical concerts are performed every summer season at Tivoli's Concert Hall, half of which are free to visitors to the Gardens. The ?'Plænen' open air stage features top pop stars - Danish and foreign alike - approx. 25 times in each season.

Tivoli's silent theatre, the Pantomime Theatre, puts on pantomimes old and new, approx. 300 times during the season.?'Valmuen' - the Poppy Children's Theatre - has daily performances, and the Tivoli Boys Guard, made up of around 100 boys aged 8-16, parade through the Gardens, covering 300 km a year.

All in all, Tivoli has more than 2,000 free entertainment events on offer throughout the summer - many of which are provided by one of Tivoli's four orchestras, the Tivoli Symphony Orchestra, the Tivoli Big Band, the Tivoli Promenade Orchestra and the Tivoli Boys Guard Band.

Amusements are good for you
When Tivoli Gardens opened in 1843, visitors had a choice of two amusements - a horse-drawn carrousel and a roller coaster. Today, there are 25 amusements. Four of these are roller coasters, with the oldest, ?'Bjergrutschebanen' (the Mountain Roller Coaster), dating from 1914, still the most popular amusement in Tivoli, with more than 1,000,000 visitors riding on it every summer.

A test-your-strength machine, shooting tents and coconut shies have been part of Tivoli since its inception, and for those who prefer the gambling challenge, Tivoli now has Denmark's biggest amusement arcade, Tivoli Jackpot.

Art and Design
What many people do not realise is that Tivoli has been the playground of a number of internationally recognised Danish artists and designers from the 1940s to the present day. The idea is more to create dreams than to satisfy design critics, and the Gardens are filled with ingenious buildings, lamps and fountains.

The architect and lamp designer Poul Henningsen, known as PH, has designed a number of lamps for Tivoli, including a spiral lamp, which can still be seen near TivoliLake, as well as a special black-out lamp, which enabled the Gardens to stay open after sunset during the occupation. The physicist Niels Bohr and the garden architect Eigil Kjær helped to develop the idea for the Bubble Fountain in front of Nimb, and the ceramic artists Bjørn Wiinblad and Lin Utzon have created two very different fountains.

Tivoli also has a strong tradition of poster art. The most distinguished Tivoli poster artist is Thor Bøgelund (1890-1959) who created posters for Tivoli for more than 40 years. Every year since 1976, a well-known Danish artist has been asked to design the Tivoli 'Poster of the Year'. They include Bjørn Wiinblad, Wilhelm Freddie, Per Arnoldi and Thomas Kluge and - the only foreign artist - David Hockney.

Get into the Christmas spirit at Tivoli Gardens
During the countdown to Christmas, Tivoli decks itself out in winter finery. The lake next to The Chinese Pagoda is transformed into a skating rink, the specially designed Christmas stalls sell sweets, delicacies and Christmas gifts, and the two indoor stages at the Glass Hall and the Concert Hall feature Christmas performances. The trees are ablaze with hundreds of thousands of lights, and braziers and torches provide warmth and light during the dark winter months.

The first time Tivoli opened for Christmas was in 1994. The beautiful Christmas lights are the work of the American designer John Loring, who has also designed the Christmas lights on New York's premier shopping street, Park Avenue.

Summer season:
Tivoli Gardens are open from April 11th till September 21st, 2003.

Christmas season:
Christmas at Tivoli' is open from November 18th till December 23rd, 2003.