Festival Hall (フェスティバルホール) was a concert hall in Kita-ku, Osaka, Japan. The Hall had 2,709 seats and was home to the Osaka Philharmonic Orchestra. It was run by the Asahi Building Co., Ltd., a Japanese real estate company controlling properties of the Asahi Shimbun Company, and was housed in the Shin Asahi Building, an office complex.
Osaka Festival Hall was opened in 1958, on the occasion of the first Osaka International Festival for which it was specially built. The Shin Asahi Building is currently being renovated to a skyscraper, the plan for which was announced in April 2007 by Asahi Shinbun Company, a group that includes the Asahi Building Co., Ltd. According to this plan, the building's reconstruction would start in 2009 and be completed by 2013. The hall was closed for reconstruction on December 30, 2008 and subsequently torn down. The new hall will be the same size as the old Festival Hall.[1]
The Festival Hall had great acoustic characteristics, loved by many renowned musicians, a number of whom have expressed strong concerns about the reconstruction of the Hall.