VIENNA, AUSTRIA — To celebrate the 200th birthday of Johann Strauss II, the Vienna Tourist Board is launching an intergalactic premiere. The Waltz into Space mission will send Strauss’s masterpiece The Blue Danube into deep space. This star-bound spectacle is the Vienna Tourist Board’s tribute to Strauss on his 200th birthday, with creative direction led by agency Jung von Matt DONAU.
Stanley Kubrick already gave The Blue Danube its cinematic wings in 2001: A Space Odyssey, but the waltz was mysteriously left out of NASA’s legendary Voyager Golden Record, a chronicle of human history that’s been spinning through space for nearly five decades. Vienna is now setting the record straight, quite literally.
On May 31, 2025, the Wiener Symphoniker (Vienna Symphony Orchestra) will perform the waltz in a special concert at Vienna’s MAK Museum. The performance will then be digitized and launched via the European Space Agency’s deep space communication hub in Cebreros, Spain hurtling through the stars at light speed, and overtaking Voyager 1 in just over 23 hours.
Jung von Matt DONAU is fueling the mission with a cheeky campaign film, imagining a fictional disaster behind the waltz’s original snub. Featuring actor Adam Astill as a lovestruck Mission Director and directed by Bart Timmer, the film interweaves NASA’s vintage footage with a dose of sharp humor and nostalgic flair. Catch it across nine countries from March 10 to May 2.
An interactive microsite invites users to symbolically “adopt” one of the 13,743 notes of the waltz, turning every participant into a co-pilot of this cosmic musical journey. Each name will be tethered to the melody’s voyage through the stars, linking Earthlings to Vienna’s musical DNA.
The campaign also launches a fresh wave of print and digital ads, inviting the world to tune in, adopt a note, and waltz into the unknown.
Norbert Kettner, Director of Vienna Tourist Board, commented: “As part of our mission with the European Space Agency, we are broadcasting “The Blue Danube” in the direction of the spacecraft that is already moving in interstellar space – “Waltz into Space” thus has an effect beyond our solar system and also inspires people on Earth to experience culture in Vienna,”
Stefan Bauernberger, Creative Director of Jung von Matt DONAU, added: “This project is ground-breaking because it challenges the limits of creativity itself – what does it mean to perform when the audience might not even be human?”
Waltz into Space is the latest in a series of innovative campaigns born from the creative collaboration between the Vienna Tourist Board and Jung von Matt DONAU. This innovation partnership is dedicated to developing extraordinary communication solutions that advance Vienna as a brand and set new benchmarks. Previous campaigns have included placing famous risqué Vienna artworks on OnlyFans, introducing a “microdose Vienna” pill, and creating an augmented reality avatar of Sigmund Freud to encourage people to visit the city.
Find more information about the Waltz into Space Mission on: space.vienna.info
CREDITS
Agency Jung von Matt DONAU
Executive Creative Director: Michael Nagy
Creative Director: Stefan Bauernberger, Andreas Kadenbach
Snr Copywriter: Theresa Scherrer
Jr Copywriter: Tina Arakis
Campaign Design: Kristina Miac
Snr Designer: Thomas Neulinger, Christian Gressel
Client Service Director: Cornelia Gall
Snr Project Manager: Lisa Gärtner
Project Manager: Anna Löwer, Ellen Mericka, Winnie Tsao
Title Animation: Roman Buchberger
Photography: Luise Thüringer
Programmer Microsite: Tom Strobl
Vienna Tourist Board
Brand Management Director: Claudia Wieland
Brand Communication Team Manager: Lukas Merl
Project Management: Isabella Graf, Patricia Deubner
Sound Studio soundfiler
Voice-over: Dave Dempsey
Producer: Patrick Kaiser
Production Studio chelsy
Director: Bart Timmer
DoP: Robbie Van Brussel
Executive Producer: Günther Zott
Producer: Vinh Tran
1st AD: Alban Bekic
Production Coordinator: Sara Martinez Hämmerle
Post Supervisor: David Schwaiger
Gaffer: Erich Puchner
Key Grip: Killian Filzi
Sound Engineer: Christoph Kuchner
Styling: Helga Schania
Make Up: Andrea Hanke
Cast (Mission Director): Adam Astill
Cast (Assistant): Hasan Dixon
Production Studio MXR Productions
DOP: Leonard Gaspar
