Fighting Aids and Celebrating Life: Life Ball in Vienna with Concordia

The Life Ball’s main goal is to achieve the highest-possible donation sumfor the financial support of HIV-infected people. Financial support from the Life Ball focuses on organizations and initiatives from whose activities directly benefit people with HIV and AIDS. The Life Ball is also fighting for a number of attitudinal aspects. Among the most important are:

* Creating awareness for HIV/AIDS as an incurable disease that can affect anybody,
* Setting strong signals of solidarity, tolerance and against the social isolationof victims (social AIDS), minorities of any kind and intolerance in general,
* Raising awareness for responsible sexual behavior.

The first Life Ball took place in 1993, as a rather small event. Apart from minor governmental support there were only two sponsors. In the consecutive years, interest in the Life Ball increased greatly, from the public as well as international media.

Ever since the first Life Ball in 1993, famous celebrities and artists have been supporting the Life Ball, placing themselves in service of the charity project, lending their voices to the people concerned.

With their appearance and personal involvement, Eva Longoria, Bill Clinton, Sharon Stone, Linda Evangelista, Nadja Auermann, Sir Elton John, Catherine Deneuve, Liza Minnelliand many more have shown their commitment to the subject. As „Ambassadors of Life” they make an important contribution to the Life Ball’s success. Over the years, the Life Ball has been partnering with numerous international charity organizations and global initiatives as well as local support organizations in Austria. International Organizations are:

For several years, the Life Ball was dedicated to a new motto each year. In 2009, a new quadrennial conceptwas brought on, building up the semantic and formal centre of the staging frame. The elements of Water, Earth, Air and Fire represent the power of their archaic roots, at the same time combining them with important, progressive values of modern societies, like tolerance.

Life Ball featured the element of “Earth”. Earth is not only an element but also represents the planet people living on as well as the multitude of rich sources it provides for all of us, the nourishing fundamentwe can rely upon to start into a future of hope, love and understanding. For the Life Ball this means: “Sow the Seeds of Solidarity!”

Life Ball 2010 –„A celebration in solidarity with the 18th World AIDS Conference“
Usually happening in May each year, Life Ball 2010 was an exception: to honor the annual International AIDS Conference, which was held in Vienna from July 18-23, the event was postponed to take place the day before the opening of the conference.

AIDS 2010 is most widely watched AIDS event in the world. Approx. 25,000 participants, including 2,500 journalists from more than 100 countries attended the event. Due to the temporal and thematic affinity, both events benefit from each other’s prominence and popularity, gaining public awareness.

The Burgtheater hosted an exclusive Black-Tie Event. For the first time ever, one part of the Life Ball event 2010 took place at the Burgtheater which is located opposite the City Hall. That way, the traditional Red Carpet on the square in front of the City Hall was framed on both sides by unique locations.

The Burgtheater (the former imperial court theatre) is one of the most important theatres in Europe, and it is the second-oldest theatre still in existence after the Comédie Francaise. The Life Ball Event was held all over the huge old building, granting to be exquisite and never seen before.

The Life Ball 2010 invited Princess Marie Louise of Prussia to a special collaboration. Fundraising through exclusive black-tie event in Burgtheater. Net proceeds of all tables sold by Princess Marie Louise of Prussia were donated to Concordia Foundation in Marbella.