From projectors to beer taps: a 360° look at the rented World Cup stadium

To create the right atmosphere for World Cup viewing at home you need, of course, an impressive TV screen, rich sound for the stadium atmosphere, cold drinks, tasty snacks... and the right people. Okay, you’ll have to take care of that last one yourself. But you can usually buy the rest. The problem: for truly professional equipment, you could easily fork out thousands of Euros. And after the month of the World Cup is over, it lies around, unused. Or the 80-inch big screen is only used for watching the evening news...

David Rahnaward has a better idea. In 2016, together with his colleagues at OTTO, he designed and founded the start-up OTTO NOW. OTTO NOW is an online shop where customers can rent technology, household or sports items for a short time, without a contract, and with maximum flexibility. It’s about being able to use and try out products easily, instead of also having to buy them – especially if they’ll only be used sporadically. And this year the team thought, why not simply hire the entire World Cup home stadium?

So how exactly can everyone settle into their own World Cup stadium at home? We had three questions for David.

David, what do you have available to rent?

David: Various things. When choosing them the first thing we considered was, what would we want to do for our own World Cup party? Soon enough we weren’t just looking at projectors and big screens, but also at mini fridges and the beer tap. For the World Cup month we’ve incorporated some new products into our range and are renting them out optionally for this month only. Afterwards the customers send them back to us and they’re gone again – without the stress of placing ads, sales losses or packed-out attics.

And how much does this fun cost?

David: For one month? Certainly less than it would cost to buy everything. And that’s also true when using the items in the longer term. That’s because the longer a customer wants to use a product, the more our monthly rental costs fall. For around 300 Euros you’ll be at the World Cup. A real ticket to the stadium doesn’t cost much more. But we’re very clear when we say that those who are keen to use the World Cup as an excuse to get a new home cinema system that they’ll use long-term are looking in the wrong place. They should buy the products directly, as in the long term, that’s the most cost-effective way.

Where can I have a look at the equipment?

David: In the home stadium itself. In fact, we’ve installed our World Cup range in a real living room and photographed the whole thing as a 360° panoramic shot, which you can view here. So have a look for yourself at a potential home stadium and take inspiration for your own. What’s more, our living blogger, Elisa, has compiled the most important tips in a video on the roombeez website, and she shows you the installation of the World Cup living room in a time lapse video.