New Zealand’s touring circuit has been handed a boost after the national stadium was granted permission to double the number of concerts it can host per year.

Auckland’s 60,000-cap Eden Park will now be able to stage up to 12 shows (by a maximum of six artists) each calendar year.

The “landmark” decision from the authorities followed overwhelming public support for the proposal, with 94% of 2,000 submissions backing the increase.

“We are delighted that Eden Park has been granted consent to host up to 12 concert events,” says Eden Park CEO Nick Sautner. “This is a landmark moment for Auckland and New Zealand’s entertainment scene.”

P!nk brought her Summer Carnival Tour to the venue for two nights in March, with a show by Travis Scott in October and three nights with Coldplay last month rounding off 2024. However, acts such as Taylor Swift, Olivia Rodrigo and Billie Eilish opted to skip New Zealand on their latest tours.

“Expanding venue availability enables us to offer artists flexibility to perform multiple shows”

“Expanding venue availability enables us to offer artists flexibility to perform multiple shows to meet fan demand, making Auckland a more attractive stop on their global tours,” adds Sautner.

“Eden Park has been a cornerstone of Auckland’s cultural and sporting landscape for over 120 years. This consent allows us to build on that legacy, attracting top global artists while maintaining our commitment to being a valuable asset for our community and strategic asset for New Zealand.

“We will continue working with promoters to bring international artists to New Zealand’s national stadium. Our commitment to continually enhancing venue utilisation and infrastructure will ensure that Eden Park is a world-class, multi-purpose venue for top-tier events.”

The decision has also been hailed as “great news” for Auckland’s hospitality industry.

“Major events like concerts at Eden Park bring life and energy to the city, and they’re a real boost for local businesses, including hospitality and accommodation operators,” says Hospitality New Zealand CEO Steve Armitage.

“Our stadium business is having an incredible run of shows”

“Our sector thrives when visitors come to our cities and towns. The run of Coldplay and Pearl Jam concerts in Auckland earlier this month brought the city to life, filling our venues and restaurants with visitors keen to experience more than just the music. Accommodation occupancies were also close to 90%.”

The organisation cites research from Massey University showing that for every dollar spent on live performance, A$3.20 (€1.97) is returned in benefits to the wider community.

“Auckland businesses in our sector will be ready to welcome locals and visitors heading to Eden Park, and to make the most of the opportunities that more concerts will create,” adds Armitage.

Speaking in IQ‘s 2024 Global Promoters Report, Live Nation New Zealand MD Mark Kneebone said that business was “strong”, with the country experiencing a “record year” for ticket sales.

“Our stadium business is having an incredible run of shows with three nights of Coldplay, three nights with P!nk, two shows with Pearl Jam, and one Eden Park stadium show for Travis Scott,” he added.

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Operators of New Zealand’s national stadium are bidding to double the number of concerts it is allowed to host per year.

The 60,000-cap Eden Park in Auckland is currently permitted to hold six gigs a year but has applied to increase the limit to 12, to be “performed by no more than six different artists”.

P!nk brought her Summer Carnival Tour to the venue for two nights in March, with shows by Travis Scott (31 October) and Coldplay (13 & 15-16 November) still to come before 2024 is out.

“Increasing the number of concert events will help Auckland and New Zealand continue to be an appealing destination for major international tours,” says Eden Park chief executive Nick Sautner, as per Coliseum. “Concerts at Eden Park have become integral to our country’s cultural landscape, delivering significant socio-economic benefits to our local community and city.”

The move comes after acts such as Taylor Swift, Olivia Rodrigo and Billie Eilish elected to skip New Zealand on their latest tours. New Zealand was included on The Weeknd’s cancelled 2023 tour but is not part of the revised 2024 itinerary “due to schedule and logistical constraints”.

“The current limit of six concert events per year at Eden Park restricts the stadium’s ability to attract and accommodate top-tier international acts,” adds Sautner. “By increasing this limit, Eden Park can offer artists flexibility to perform multiple shows to meet fan demand, making Auckland a more attractive stop on their global tours.”

“We have proven we can deliver large-scale international concerts successfully”

Moreover, Sautner says the bid has the support of the overwhelming majority of the Auckland public and notes that 70% of the venue’s current revenue streams did not exist five years ago, highlighting the evolution of the business.

“Live events such as concerts provide escapism and entertainment for people,” he continues. “We have proven we can deliver large-scale international concerts successfully and with an overwhelming 95% of our local community in support of concerts, we want to have the option to bring more world-class entertainment to our city.”

Speaking in IQ‘s 2024 Global Arena Guide, Mark Gosling, general manager of Auckland’s Sparks Arena (cap. 13,280), offered an update on the state of play for live music in the country.

“We are confident that the pipeline of international acts is looking consistent for the remainder of 2024 and into early 2025,” he said. “The pandemic impact has largely subsided, and the touring cycle has returned back to its normal timing, with the southern hemisphere very busy from October through to April during the northern winter.”

A new 55,000-seat stadium was proposed for the Quay Park area of Auckland earlier this year.

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New Zealand’s Spark Arena is upping its capacity after celebrating its biggest year since opening in 2007.

More than 655,000 fans attended the Auckland arena and its neighbouring club venue, The Tuning Fork, in 2023 – breaking the previous record of 619,000 set in 2018.

The achievement equates to 41% of Auckland’s population, or 13% of the national population, attending an event at Spark Arena, which has officially increased its capacity from 12,000 to 13,280.

“This will mean more tickets will be available to fans that otherwise might miss out and it will also be beneficial for Spark Arena and promoters to attract even more world-class talent and the globe’s biggest acts to Aotearoa, New Zealand,” says Spark Arena general manager Mark Gosling.

Last year, the Live Nation-operated venue welcomed artists including 50 Cent, Lizzo, and Paramore, as well as hosting the largest country shows ever in New Zealand with sold-out shows by Morgan Wallen and Luke Combs. Record audiences also turned out for the first major performances by K-Pop group P1Harmony, Taiwanese musician Jonathan Lee and Indian singer/songwriter Diljit Dosanjh.

“We are proud our venue brings significant social and economic value to communities as the gateway of entertainment for the country”

“2023 was a big year for our dedicated and skilled team who have worked around the clock to deliver a wide range of events for Kiwis at the highest level,” adds Gosling. “It is fantastic to see New Zealanders really get behind events and we are proud our venue brings significant social and economic value to communities as the gateway of entertainment for the country.”

Over the past couple of months, Spark Arena has hosted Jonas Brothers, Queens of the Stone Age, three sold-out shows with SZA and smashed all-time nightly attendance records with both Blink 182 and Fred Again.. Upcoming acts include Macklemore, Brooke Fraser, Tate McRae, Jerry Seinfeld and Iron Maiden.

Spark Arena will also play host to the World Choir Games this July featuring around 250 choirs from more than 30 countries.

Across Australia and New Zealand, the Live Nation Venue Nation division also oversees the Tuning Fork in Auckland, San Fran in Wellington as well as the Palais Theatre and Festival Hall in Melbourne, and Anita’s Theatre in Thirroul, New South Wales, along with the Fortitude Music Hall in Brisbane and Hindley Street Music Hall in Adelaide.

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A new 55,000-seat stadium has been proposed for the Quay Park area of Auckland, New Zealand.

The stadium would form part of a wider 15-hectare precinct known as Te Tōangaroa, which would also include hotels, bars, restaurants, retail and office space, residential apartments and green spaces.

Designed by architecture firm HKS Australasia, the proposed stadium features an innovative U-shaped design, with the roof drawing inspiration from Maori culture.

The stadium will allow configurations for both sports and concerts, while the retractable roof will allow for indoor and outdoor events to take place, irrespective of the weather.

“The last thing Auckland needs is another cookie cutter, cake tin solution that is imported from Australia or Europe”

The Auckland Council is reviewing a number of projects for a major stadium development in the city. One of these proposals has been put forward by Eden Park, New Zealand’s national stadium, which is planning on fitting a new retractable roof.

Other projects in the mix include potential waterfront stadiums at Bledisloe Wharf and Wynyard Point. Last year, it emerged that the Auckland Waterfront Consortium (AWC), which first revealed a proposal for a NZ$1.8 billion venture back in 2018, was planning a new venue that could seat up to 70,000 people.

Speaking about the unique design of the stadium, Andrew Colling, a director at HKS Australasia, told the NZ Herald: “Every city deserves a unique response and especially New Zealand. The last thing Auckland needs is another cookie cutter, cake tin solution that is imported from Australia or imported from Europe. We felt very strongly that this was an opportunity to take a fresh start.

“It reflects the unique context and backdrop and hopefully when people see the images they feel a strong sense of connection that yes, this is New Zealand, this is Auckland. That was the key driver; when you are in the stadium you can’t be anywhere else in the world.”

Colling added: “We hope that our design excites the community, shows what is possible and hopefully the momentum keeps going. It’s a catalyst to look at the east side of the city a bit differently.”

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A record year is being forecast for New Zealand’s concert scene, with Live Nation APAC revealing it has already sold out 80% of its shows in the market for 2024.

Artists including Foo Fighters, Jonas Brothers, Queens of the Stone Age, Blink-182 and Iron Maiden are due to play at venues across the country in 2024.

And national stadium Eden Park has two dates scheduled with P!nk from 8-9 March and three nights with Coldplay on 13 & 15-16 November. Spokesperson Duncan Blomfield tells 1News it will be the first year that music events outsell sporting events at the 60,000-cap Auckland stadium.

“The biggest one will of course be Coldplay, we’ve already got three concerts announced,” says Blomfield. “Sixty thousand people at each concert — so 180,000 to 200,000 just for that one event.”

P!nk will also perform at Forsyth Barr Stadium, Dunedin on 5 March.

“Concerts used to be something that people would go to once or twice a year, but now it’s something they’re going to four or five or six times a year,” says Mark Kneebone, MD New Zealand at Live Nation APAC. “The excitement is huge. The demand for tickets is massive.”

Frontier Touring, meanwhile, will present Foo Fighters at the 47,000-cap Go Media Stadium in Auckland on 20 January. The band will also perform at Apollo Projects Stadium in Christchurch on 24 January and Wellington’s Sky Stadium on 27 January.

“We have had to wait a long time to bring Laneway Festival back to Aotearoa”

St Jerome’s Laneway Festival, which debuted in the country in 2010, will take place in New Zealand for the first time since 2020. After two years of pandemic cancellations, the 2023 edition was scrapped due to flooding.

Laneway 2024 will return to Aotearoa on Waitangi Day, 6 February, at the outer fields at Western Springs. Acts include Stormzy, Steve Lacy, Dominic Fike, Unknown Mortal Orchestra, Raye and AJ Tracey.

“We have had to wait a long time to bring Laneway Festival back to Aotearoa,” says Laneway Festival co-founder Danny Rogers. “We were humbled by the outpouring of support shown to us earlier this year, and can’t wait to return, bringing an epic lineup of some of the world’s most exciting performers to this incredible venue in 2024.”

Plus, Tom Jones will perform a NZ exclusive performance at McLean Park in Napier on 6 April.

Elsewhere, Auckland’s Spark Arena has upcoming shows by artists such as Kid Laroi, The National, Jonas Brothers, Iron Maiden, Thirty Seconds to Mars and Tate McRae, while Wolfbrook Arena in Christchurch will welcome Matchbox Twenty, Queens of the Stone Age, Blink-182 and Incubus in the first half of the year.

PwC’s Economic Contribution of the NZ Music Industry 2023 report found that live performance had an estimated total economic impact of $167m and 1,703 FTEs, after accounting for multiplier effects, with homegrown content contributing just over a quarter of these impacts.

According to the 2023 Global Promoters Report, new festivals and venues are expected to see significant growth in New Zealand over the next decade.

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–New Zealand band Six60 will set a new record for the most amount of NZ stadiums visited during one tour.

The tour will kick off in March 2022, visiting six stadiums including Rotorua International Stadium (cap. 34,000) in Rotorua, Forsyth Barr Stadium (30,700) in Dunedin, Orangetheory Stadium (18,000) in Christchurch and Sky Stadium (34,000) in Wellington.

The 2022 jaunt will also visit Napier’s Mclean Park (19,700), where the band will make history as the first act to play at the sports ground.

The 2022 jaunt will also visit Napier’s Mclean Park, where the band will make history as the first act to play at the ground

The tour will conclude with a concert at Auckland’s Eden Park (50,000), a year after Six60 became the first band to headline the stadium with their sold-out concert in April.

The Eden Park show was also the world’s largest concert since the beginning of the Covid-19 pandemic.

Ahead of next year’s tour, Six60 are encouraging fans to get their jabs to ensure they don’t miss out on next year’s dates, as vaccine passports will be mandatory for anyone in the country wanting to attend live music events.

The introduction of vaccine passports has divided the country’s live music industry, with some promoters insisting certification will be the key to summer festivals and others warning it’ll create a ‘two-tier’ society.

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New Zealand band Six60 are set to play the world’s largest concert since the beginning of the Covid-19 pandemic to 50,000 people next month.

The band will be the first act to play New Zealand’s largest stadium, Eden Park (50,000-capacity) in Auckland, on 24 April as part of their Six60 Saturdays tour.

In February this year, it was announced that the famous sporting stadium could host up to six concerts a year, following a five-day hearing in November in which residents’ concerns about potential noise and disruption were addressed.

Six60 were an active voice in the campaign to bring concerts to Eden Park and frontman Matiu Walters said in a statement: “It’s no secret that Six60 have wanted to play Eden Park for some time now. We always felt that it was important a kiwi band should play the first show at our national stadium.

“We always felt that it was important a kiwi band should play the first show at our national stadium”

“Because of the hard work that New Zealand has done as a community we’re in the privileged position to be able to perform to an audience of this size. It’s a great reward, we’re stoked that it’s become a reality and it’s a real honour to bring our show to the garden of Eden. We can’t wait.”

The Eden Park concert will be the seventh date of Six60 Saturdays, which is the only stadium tour in the world to go ahead during the pandemic so far.

In January, the band delivered the biggest headline show in New Zealand since the pandemic began to an estimated 20,000 people at Waitangi Sports Grounds in Paihia.

The tour has also made stops in Hastings, New Plymouth, Christchurch, Wellington and Hamilton.

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New Zealand star Benee, whose ongoing NZ headline tour is the first major non-socially distanced run since March, will livestream the final night to a global audience.

The tour’s finale, which takes place at Auckland’s 12,000-seat Spark Arena on 17 October, will be streamed on the singer’s website, beneemusic.com, at 9.20pm local time. A full replay will then take place at 9pm BST/10pm CEST (1pm PDT/4pm BST) on 17 October (9am New Zealand time the following day).

Tickets are priced at US$10, and ticketholders will be able to access the stream on demand for 48 hours following the performance.

“I feel incredibly lucky to be able to get back on stage”

‘Supalonely’ singer Benee, who has performed on The Tonight Show with Jimmy Fallon, Ellen and Late Night With Seth Meyers and recorded 2.2 billion streams globally, began her Live Nation-promoted arena tour of New Zealand last week. It follows a run of sold-out shows in Europe and North America prior to the coronavirus crisis.

“Musicians from all over the place are missing the live connection with their supporters right now, so I feel incredibly lucky to be able to get back on stage,” she says. “I’m so excited that we’re streaming the Auckland show; it means we can bring my fans from all over into the room with us.”

Unlike the rest of the world, there are no social distancing guidelines for live events in New Zealand, which has zero community cases of Covid-19. Non-socially distanced live entertainment (albeit with strictly enforced contact tracing) returned to the Australasian country in June.

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Choose life. Choose a plant (preferably the waste product of agriculture); upcycle it into something we need (food and drink packaging); make our customers happy by serving their needs and delighting them with our attention to detail (quality products, ease of use); make it impossible for customers to stuff it up (take back control – sorry, you Brits!); make sure it gets composted (I said, make sure!); then send it back to the farms (or kiwi fruit orchards).

While deposit-scheme reusable cups and drink-bottle culture is on the rise in greenfield sites, in arenas we operate a different model in which hard objects are simply unacceptable. This has given rise to the proliferation of nasty plastic products, including polystyrene and laminated cartons, at indoor events, as well as the usual PET cups, polystyrene and soft plastic wrapping around foodstuffs.

Anyone remember Wall-E? Prophetic, huh?! The waste mountain is beginning to smother the Earth, and we need to do something. Now.

The good news is, the KISS (keep it simple, stupid) principle actually works. Here at Spark Arena we have been composting EVERYTHING since last August: that’s a million PLA cups, lids and straws, plus countless thousands of bagasse/bamboo/paper food cartons, cutlery, napkins, etc.

Cross-contamination was a huge problem, so rather than try to solve it, we completely removed it. No matter how hard we tried, however beautiful and well-labelled the bins, however persuasive our social media campaigns, the fact is that punters are distracted, unobservant, disinterested and ultimately just there for the gig. Meaning they will always do the mindless thing: either dropping stuff on the floor or in the totally wrong bin. We have stood there and watched them do it: chips in the paper recycling, ice cream in the plastics…

So rather than add more bins, more sorting, we flipped the problem on its head and went with just the one bin. For everything. And with just one final destination: the Earth.

Taking a systems approach rather than a piecemeal one to procurement, catering, cleaning and waste management, we have created a waste-free environment for all concerts at Spark Arena. System design means taking full responsibility for inventory, how it is handled and where it ends up, and it can only be done if the venue is in control and has absolute clarity.

Taking a systems approach … we have created a waste-free environment for all concerts at Spark Arena

Getting it right is called the circular economy, which is an oft-misused phrase. Circular means plant back to plant. Cradle to cradle, not cradle to grave. The system design took into account:

• Deliberate or unwitting use of packaging made from problematic materials
• Cross-contamination of waste types by staff and customers
• Lack of transparency and control in the procure-use-collect-dispose chain
• An understanding of our local commercial composting facilities

We have to stop kidding ourselves that recycling is good, when it is only very slightly less bad. According to National Geographic, only 9% of plastics globally are actually recycled. The rest ends up in landfill, gets burned or ends up in the ocean. While the figures may be better where you are, the reality is truly appalling. We can’t allow ourselves to be satisfied with a product that calls itself “recyclable”. And don’t even get me started on the disingenuous use of the word “biodegradable”…

Our local compost facility regard us as a trusted supplier, having monitored our compostable waste and found it to be below the contamination threshold they can accept. The resulting compost is top-grade stuff, and in high demand. There is always the chance of contamination, so we do have some landfill bins for rogue items that get into the building, but we have managed to source ice creams and crisps in compostable packets now, too, and we have bulk-bought sweet items and repackage them in-house, so we have barely anything to send to landfill these days.

We even have straws. They are not the devil. They go in the compost.

We rolled out this system following my master’s of design in 2016, and my next step will be to use an action research methodology to test its efficacy in different scenarios and locations as part of my future PhD study into sustainability design for music events.

If you want to be part of the study or would like more details, please email me at [email protected].

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Auckland’s Spark Arena has switched to 100% compostable serveware for public events, replacing all single-use cups and hot food packaging with compostable plant-based alternatives.

The switch, which forms part of the 12,000-capacity venue’s new ‘zero-waste strategy’, will see all compostable waste, which now includes cups, lids, straws, cutlery, napkins, food containers and food waste, delivered directly to local composting plant Envirofert, where it will be turned into compost.

Spark Arena hosts more than 500,000 eventgoers, using over a million disposable cups, annually, and arena design strategist Judith Clumpas explains that when the lights go up at the end of the show, the mixture of rubbish left over has proved “almost impossible” to sort through.

This cross-contamination of recyclable material, combined with the ongoing recycling crisis in New Zealand, means it “made absolute sense to make a change,” says Clumpas. “If you could see the volume of mess that is left after a concert, you would be truly horrified to realise just how much ends up in landfill.”

“It’s a great start, and I’m looking forward to seeing a positive shift across the events industry in the years ahead”

“Designing a robust new system for waste management at Spark Arena has included sourcing ethical products from reputable local suppliers Innocent Packaging and Ecoware, creating bespoke bins with Method to promote behavioural change and working closely with environmentally focused companies Green Gorilla and Envirofert to ensure products are disposed of in the right way,” she continues.

The only exceptions are snack packets and lolly and ice-cream wrappers, which are not yet compostable, although arena bosses hope they will be by stage two of the zero-waste programme.

“People come to Spark Arena for a good time, and I see it as our responsibility not only to deliver a great experience, but to go further by doing the right thing as a good host”, says Brendan Hines, the arena’s GM.

“It’s a great start, and I’m looking forward to seeing a positive shift across the events industry in the years ahead,” he continues. “I see more changes ahead, but we are taking it one step at a time, and trying to get it right.”

Spark Arena, known as Vector Arena prior to the start of last year, has been operated by Live Nation since August 2015.

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