\u2018\u2018Innovative\u2019\u2019 investment unveiled for Dunedin\u2019s covered stadium will attract a wide range of acts the city is missing out on, the venue boss says.<\/p>\n
Dunedin Venues Management Ltd yesterday revealed plans for a capacity-reduction system at Forsyth Barr Stadium, expected to be in play by summer.<\/p>\n
Using a series of retractable curtains, the system will create a scalable indoor environment for events with crowds from 3000 to the maximum capacity of 38,000, as reported by the\u00a0Otago Daily Times\u00a0last week.<\/p>\n
Chief executive Paul Doorn said the changes would address the \u2018\u2018Goldilocks problem\u2019\u2019 Dunedin faced \u2014 the city was well placed for small and large events, but missed out on hosting increasing popular mid-sized events.<\/p>\n
\u2018\u2018The capacity reduction system will actually drive much better conversations with people about saying, \u2018What\u2019s the act or artist or sporting event that you\u2019ve got … and how can I shape the stadium to be the right size for the right people?\u2019.<\/p>\n
\u2018\u2018It just creates greater versatility,\u2019\u2019 he said.<\/p>\n
DVML also announced a 10-year partnership with Ticketek, which would become the exclusive ticketing partner for the stadium and the Dunedin Centre.<\/p>\n
Mr Doorn declined to reveal the cost of the new system, but said Ticketek had made a \u2018\u2018large\u2019\u2019 contribution.<\/p>\n
\u2018\u2018I think people should see the fact that they\u2019re willing to help invest in it as being a really important part of the initiative.\u2019\u2019<\/p>\n
The intention was to finish detailed design work in the coming months, with installation due before Christmas and the system in use by acts touring in the new year.<\/p>\n
\u2018\u2018It\u2019s a complicated and really innovative design … growing the grass and getting sunlight to the grass is still a critical component,\u2019\u2019 Mr Doorn said.<\/p>\n
\u2018\u2018You\u2019ll see some high-tensile wire running across the stadium that are part of the levers to be able to lift things up and down.<\/p>\n
\u2018\u2018But other than that, I think it\u2019ll still be a very clean roof.\u2019\u2019<\/p>\n
There would be a learning curve regarding the curtains and acoustics, Mr Doorn said.<\/p>\n
\u2018\u2018We actually will be spending some really quality time making sure we try to maximise the use of the curtains, the floor space and the sound to make it a really good fan experience.\u2019\u2019<\/p>\n
He said the Dunedin City Council\u00a0were informed about the business case at\u00a0a non-public section of Wednesday\u2019s council meeting.<\/p>\n
“The approval of the CRS is a decision for the Board of [Dunedin City Holdings Ltd],” he said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"\u2018\u2018Innovative\u2019\u2019 investment unveiled for Dunedin\u2019s covered stadium will attract a wide range of acts the city is missing…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":349608,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[111,139,69,213],"class_list":["post-349607","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-sports","tag-new-zealand","tag-newzealand","tag-nz","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/349607","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=349607"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/349607\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/349608"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=349607"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=349607"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=349607"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}