Dunedin Venues Management Ltd chief executive Paul Doorn, who will be at the new stadium tomorrow watching the Highlanders, said he was looking forward to his first visit to the new complex.
‘‘I'm sure they've been working incredibly hard, so we look forward to seeing it on the inside. The proof will be in the pudding, I guess,’’ Mr Doorn said.
‘‘I've been looking and following the reviews like everybody else, but I know that major events bring a massive impact to the city in Dunedin and I'm sure that they'll be looking to do the same thing in Christchurch.
‘‘They're our cousins up the road. We've got to worry about ourselves. We're certainly not putting ourselves up as going head to head. I mean, one stadium's 14 years old, the other one's brand new.’’
They would have their time in the sun with the opening, he said.
With the new stadium in Christchurch, many have predicted Forsyth Barr Stadium would become a white elephant and other uses for it should be looked at.
Mr Doorn though was still fully supportive of Dunedin’s stadium and continued to work hard to try to buck an emerging concert trend.
‘‘The trend at the moment clearly is for larger stadiums and then for acts staying in one location. If you're looking at Australia and New Zealand as a combined entity for acts thinking about coming down for a tour, then the big acts are more likely to stay in Sydney and Melbourne than they are even to go to Brisbane or South Australia or Perth at this stage.’’
‘‘But like I've said always, we're still very positive about what's coming down the pipeline for us, we're just not in a position to announce them just yet.’’
Announcements were expected in June or July. It is believed an All Black test against Scotland next year was also looking very promising.
The last big concert in the stadium was in March 2024 when Pink performed.
When Jules Radich was mayor of Dunedin he had floated an idea of collaborating with the new Christchurch stadium to get acts to the South Island.
Mr Doorn said yesterday the two stadiums had ended up with different ticketing providers — Christchurch had Ticketmaster and DVML had Ticketek.
‘‘That probably has meant that the fork diverged into two paths and we took one path and they took the other.’’
Operating a stadium was a lot more than building it and getting acts, he said.
It came down to a lot of things, including having trust with major stakeholders and promoters.
‘‘In what might appear simple at home, growing the turf, but to grow turf to the standard that you can play international events on, it is not an easy feat, particularly in a colder climate.’’
The stadium in Christchurch received $225m in funding from central government — covering 33% of the total cost. Forsyth Barr Stadium received $15m from central government — a 7% contribution.
Mr Doorn said he was fully aware of this and it was a common comment as he walked down the street.
‘‘You've got to be pragmatic in these things. If you worry about all these other things that you can't control, then you'd lose sight of what your main focus is, and the main focus is to provide for us a multi-purpose stadium with multiple events.
‘‘I do read the local newspaper, and I do check in with social media occasionally, but all I can say is that while there's a couple of voices out there that are a bit negative, when I walk through the stadium on event days, overwhelmingly, it's very positive, which is a great thing.
‘‘ I don't look up and go, ‘oh, my God, I wish we had what they had in Christchurch, I wish we did this’. That's just not part of our brief, really. It is what it is, and we just keep moving on.’’
Mr Doorn himself is moving on at the end of next month. His new job is running the Kai Tak Sports Park in Hong Kong. Opened in March last year, it hosted last weekend’s sevens tournament. The park has three arenas and hosted 50 concerts last year.
Mr Doorn said it was a tremendous opportunity and one too good to turn down.
