Latest / Early Edition with Ryan Bridge / Prue Daly: NZICC General Manager on the Convention Centre set to open in February of 2026

Transcript

Prue Daly: NZICC General Manager on the Convention Centre set to open in February of 2026 · Early Edition with Ryan Bridge

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: After years of building delays and one raging fire, finally
• 0:04
  Speaker 1: we've got an opening date for the new International Convention
• 0:06
  Speaker 1: Center in Auckland. Eleventh February. Doors will open. Preue Deli
• 0:09
  Speaker 1: is general manager for the convention center, joins me this morning.
• 0:12
  Speaker 2: Morning, Preue, Good morning, Ryan, thanks for having me.
• 0:16
  Speaker 1: Great to have you. One hundred and twenty one events
• 0:18
  Speaker 1: already for twenty twenty six on the on the calendar.
• 0:21
  Speaker 1: What interested to know what proportion of those are local
• 0:24
  Speaker 1: versus international?
• 0:27
  Speaker 2: Yeah, so we estimate that, you know, each year, about
• 0:30
  Speaker 2: thirty percent of the number of events that we're going
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  Speaker 2: to do will be international. We're hoping that it'll be more,
• 0:35
  Speaker 2: but as you can imagine, we've still got lots of
• 0:37
  Speaker 2: events coming in and the team we're working on converting
• 0:40
  Speaker 2: those every single day. So for us at the moment
• 0:42
  Speaker 2: where we're looking toward tasting about thirty percent and that
• 0:45
  Speaker 2: will equate to about thirty three thousand new international visitors
• 0:50
  Speaker 2: that will visit we'll visit New Zealand and Auckland every
• 0:54
  Speaker 2: year and that will look to bring about ninety million
• 0:57
  Speaker 2: dollars of economic impact to the city and the country.
• 1:00
  Speaker 1: So that's what you're forecasting and is that what you're
• 1:02
  Speaker 1: seeing with the events that you've got booked so far.
• 1:06
  Speaker 2: Yeah, absolutely, I mean for twenty twenty six out of
• 1:08
  Speaker 2: one hundred and twenty one, we do have some great
• 1:11
  Speaker 2: international congresses already concerned. A good example of one of
• 1:14
  Speaker 2: those is the Coral Reef Symposium, which is coming in July.
• 1:19
  Speaker 2: That's seeing two thousand people come for a conference for
• 1:21
  Speaker 2: four days. That alone is around five million dollars of
• 1:24
  Speaker 2: economic impact. And that's just one of the ones that
• 1:27
  Speaker 2: we've got coming for next year, and a few more
• 1:29
  Speaker 2: to announce shortly, seeing too.
• 1:31
  Speaker 1: Brilliant, brilliant how many are coming here specifically because of
• 1:34
  Speaker 1: the venue, like they would you know, they wouldn't have
• 1:38
  Speaker 1: happened anyway, you know what I mean.
• 1:40
  Speaker 2: Yeah, absolutely, I mean that's all that international business Ryan.
• 1:44
  Speaker 2: You know, a lot of them wouldn't have been able
• 1:47
  Speaker 2: to come to New Zealand without this convention center of
• 1:49
  Speaker 2: scale and being able to you know, hold these conferences
• 1:53
  Speaker 2: as sort of fifteen hundred and two thousand people. So
• 1:56
  Speaker 2: at the moment, you know, we've got a handful of
• 1:57
  Speaker 2: those that are sitting around those numbers for the next years,
• 2:00
  Speaker 2: and quite a solid pipeline that we're working on to
• 2:02
  Speaker 2: convert because we've got inquiries all the way out into
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  Speaker 2: twenty thirty two at the moment for these big congresses.
• 2:08
  Speaker 2: So the team are working really hard on making sure
• 2:10
  Speaker 2: that we can we can bring them to the country.
• 2:13
  Speaker 1: There are a lot of people out there listening who
• 2:14
  Speaker 1: need a job. Job market's being tough. How many jobs
• 2:19
  Speaker 1: are you looking to put on? And the next we.
• 2:20
  Speaker 2: Are yeah, good question. We are actually soon to be
• 2:24
  Speaker 2: going out with a recruitment drive for our casual workforce.
• 2:27
  Speaker 2: So these are our people on the ground that will
• 2:30
  Speaker 2: be welcoming our visitors into the building. It might be
• 2:33
  Speaker 2: showing them to their seat in the theater, it might
• 2:35
  Speaker 2: be serving them a cup of coffee or their morning tea.
• 2:39
  Speaker 2: We're going to kick off with about three hundred people
• 2:41
  Speaker 2: that we need to find for positions, and then once
• 2:45
  Speaker 2: we get up and firing, we estimate that could go
• 2:47
  Speaker 2: up to about five hundred people. So we are on
• 2:50
  Speaker 2: the hunts for great Kiwis to come and help us,
• 2:53
  Speaker 2: you know, showcase this building to the world.
• 2:55
  Speaker 1: Brilliant prude, nice to have you on the show. Proue Deally,
• 2:57
  Speaker 1: general manager for the International Convention Center.
• 3:00
  Speaker 2: For more from early edition with Ryan Bridge. Listen live
• 3:03
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• 3:05
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