House of Festivals and Congress Hall is located in Bregenz, located in the west of Austria, on the shores of Lake Constance, near the borders of Germany and Switzerland.

A year after the end of the Second World War, the first in Bregenz Festival: musical performance was arranged directly at two moored barges on Lake Constance. In a city that does not even possess a theater, the idea of ​​the festival seemed eccentric, but the decision about the choice as an interim stage the most beautiful part of the city - the lake - has proved very successful. Guests from Austria, Germany, Switzerland and France have made the festival an international event in the first year of its implementation. Because of the strong public interest in the festival began to develop its programs become more diverse. An old dream come true leadership of the festival with the opening of the Festival and Congress in 1980.

House festival stands for a bold visual representation. It is a unique location, unique atmosphere of open-air festivals in Bregenz doing so popular.

In 1995, the Bregenz Festival celebrated its fiftieth anniversary. In the anniversary year, the festival drew a record number of visitors. Additional benches were installed. That year the festival was visited by 318,000 people.

In 2007 there was staged Puccini's opera "Tosca", which, along with a new sound system was the ideal choice for a stage on Lake Constance. She did not leave indifferent and the team from «EON Productions», which is engaged in the production of films about James Bond. As a result, the film crew arrived here in early May for 10 days to shoot scenes for the next Bond film "Quantum of Solace."

In June 2008, during the European Football Championship held in Austria and Switzerland, the scene was set up studio, and the auditorium was converted into a public visual arena. In total, more than 160 thousand football fans came to watch live on the lake.