Sydney Exhibition Centre at Glebe Island (bottom left) will host exhibitions for the next three years while ICC Sydney is being built.
The conundrum with construction of the $1-billion International Convention Center Sydney (ICC Sydney) was what to do with ongoing business for three years during construction of the spectacular new space.
The New South Wales government was committed to accommodating both the international convention business and the exhibition business for two major reasons: to maintain the events already coming to Sydney because it’s important for the economics of the city, including keeping hotel rooms full, and to maintain events that would have potentially gone out of business if they couldn’t find a venue to book for three years.
“The government wanted to keep exhibitions going because they are also one of the reasons they are replacing the old convention and exhibition center with the new ICC Sydney,” said Harvey Lister, Chairman and CEO, AEG Ogden, which operates the temporary and future venues for New South Wales. Lister added that this is the first time he recalls a government building an interim facility for just three years.
That major piece of the puzzle is the Sydney Exhibition Centre at Glebe Island, which opened Jan. 24, 2014, and will close Dec. 31, 2016. Malu Barrios is general manager there for AEG Ogden and finds one major difference in running a temporary facility is that everything is on the fast track. When she opened Australia’s Darwin Convention Centre she had three years to plan and ramp up, versus three years total to operate on Glebe Island.
The 25,000-sq.-meter (250,000-sq.-ft.) venue was first used for the London Olympics and is owned by GL Events and leased by NSW. It is basically five halls and walls. Barrios refers to it as “a blank canvas.”
So far, 17 exhibitions are booked through the end of the year. The first event, a gift fair, opened Feb. 15 and was a chance to demonstrate how the venue works. It was highly successful, Barrios said.
“Probably the only difference between a permanent venue and temporary venue is the roof,” she said. Natural light gets in through the corrugated roof, which gives the feeling of lightness and brightness inside the hall. With the technology now available, like LED screens, it’s still possible to do all the video presentations one might think required a dark room, she added.
“One of the things I enjoy about this place is it makes me think differently. There is a solution for everything,” Barrios said. Most of the exhibitions she has booked used to take place at the convention center, so this venue requires more imagination.
Though it’s called Glebe Island, it’s actually connected to the mainland via a bridge, but there is no pedestrian access. She has a 500-space carpark next to the center and another 500 nearby. Most guests come by ferry or bus.
“The ferry is still the most popular transport,” Barrios said. “Sailing on the Sydney Harbor adds to the experience.” The exhibition center staff coordinates transportation, which is paid for by the government, with the event planner. During Reed Exhibition’s gift fair, 17,000 were ferried over in five days. “We have two vessels that accommodate 600 people each way and you can transfer 1,800 in an hour,” she said. It’s a 10-minute ride.
The exhibition center operates with 20 full-time staff, most of them from the former convention center, which had 250 full-time staff. An expo day was held to help the staff find new jobs in Sydney, including work at the exhibition center and hotels and the Sydney show grounds.
Barrios’ sales pitch for SEC at Glebe Island starts with location. It has the best view of the harbor, sits in the heart of Sydney, and is a working port. Secondly, she promotes the hardware — the experienced staff many clients are familiar with from the old convention center.
Catering is by Dockside Group, a well-known catering company in Australia. Everything is “bring your own,” she said. There is no kitchen on site. The caterer sets up portable kitchens and pop-up concessions according to event needs. The first big catered event was lunch for 1,300 Irishmen.
Barrios plans to engage the community with the opportunity to display art at the big hall, mostly sculptures, she thinks. “We need big stuff, no paintings because I can’t drill holes in the wall. I have to return this building in three years.”
Lister noted that many arenas and convention centers install temporary venues for major events, like sprung structures that pop up for Super Bowl or the Grammys. At the Brisbane Entertainment Centre, he built a 6,000-sq.-meter venue for the World Lions convention pin exchange. It’s now a temporary carpark.
But operating one for three years is rather extraordinary.
He’s concentrating on the big picture at Darling Harbor, which will eventually result in the new ICC Sydney, a new exhibition center and an 8,500-capacity theater for plenary sessions and concerts.
Right now, the project is in demolition mode. First, they take down the 25-year-old convention and exhibition center, but they will leave the 20-KPA slab and the carpark beneath. The cost of demolishing that slab to install a new 20-KPA slab was not feasible and saving it also has a positive impact on the environment.
New construction on the convention and exhibition centers and the theater starts this year. AEG Ogden Global Partnerships is seeking a title sponsor for the theater. That some group successfully renamed Qantas Credit Union Arena, formerly the Sydney Entertainment Centre, in just a few months. Ownership had unsuccessfully spent years looking for a title sponsor for that arena prior to this, Lister said.
The new theater is designed after Nokia Theatre at L.A. Live, with 6,500 seats on a single lower tier and 2,000 seats in an upper tier.
The convention business in Australia is comparable to the Congress business in Europe, not the flat-floor trade show business in the U.S. “Every major convention and exhibition centre in this market has a major plenary space with tiered seating,” Lister said.
While the interim facility at Glebe Island was facilitated to take the flat-floor business that had used the old convention center, the convention business has been parceled out to Allphones Arena, hotels and theater spaces. “We work closely with Sydney’s bureau, Business Events Sydney, to provide past clients with certainty and continuity in Sydney during the construction phase,” he said.
The Qantas Credit Union Arena will come down in December 2015 in the second phase of construction, after the convention center and exhibition center open and Glebe Island closes. That space is slated to become residential and commercial. There will be a 12-month period during which there will be no concert venue of any major size in downtown Sydney, until the new theater opens in December 2016. The 5,000-seat Hordern Pavilion and outlying Allphones Arena in Homebush, a Sydney suburb, will take up the slack.
“There are few cities in the world like Sydney — New York, Paris and London —where the business is spectacularly strong,” Lister said. The goal over the next three years is to keep it that way.
Interviewed for this story: Malu Barrios, 61 2 9719 6001; Harvey Lister, 61 7 3265 5888