With Sydney Football Stadium being demolished and building a new one, the ANZ Stadium will be next. The final event at ANZ Stadium will be #origin 1 (early June 2020) before renovations begin (Maybe in July 2020). The configuration will drop to 70-75k. the newly reconfigured anz stadium will be opened in 2023.
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Melbourneās iconic Moonee Valley Racing Club has revealed their $2 billion dollar redevelopment masterplan which will see the 2025 Cox Plate run at another venue which is yet to be determent during the construction period.
The redevelopment will see a new grandstand built on the Wilson St side of the precinct and a re position track with a longer home straight.
How do horse racing venues justify their grandstands in the first place?
Obviously to some extent they would have various functions that use the facilities - but they seem to have a huge amount of investment for places that see maybe 1 or 2 sold out race meetings a year - and Iād assume a lot of upkeep to keep the facilities modern and ready for those major events.
They also generally are badly shaped for other uses - thereās occasional festivals/concerts that use them - but usually in the empty middle bit, not using the grandstand seating.
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Youāre right with functions of all sorts. Corporate training sessions, uni exams, meetings, conferences, trade shows, weddings, dinners, balls, film and TV location sets, fashion parades, fight nights, rented office space, commercial kitchens and so on. For years the Bulldogs cheer squad used the Hill Stand at Flemington to stick their bamner together each week.
Monash University uses the Caulfield Racecourse function rooms every year for mid year and end of year exams, because there are simply not enough venues at the Caulfield and Clayton campuses to hold exams for hundreds of students in a day.
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Owners and trainers also need somewhere to sit rather than being exposed to the elements.
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Donāt remind me! Iām still recovering from the painful memories of being cooped up in that grandstand completing maths exams while the spring carnival was in full swing elsewhere!
I think Kenso Tech (UNSW) does that as well, with Randwick Racecourse.
That explains some seating - but thereās seating for tens of thousands at some of these horse racing tracks - but rarely events that would actually use them. Especially with major race meetings spread out so much.
Even all the event space usage would likely only use the interiors of the stands.
Grandstands themselves probably would only sit a few thousand at best (there arenāt too many actual rows of seats and they donāt take up a lot of ground, perhaps covering the last 150 to about 50 past the post at best, with no lower tier as thatās being taken up by jockey and stewards facilities). Should also be noted that apart from Flemingtonās and Randwickās rebuild not many of the grandstands themselves have been changed save for a lick of paint here or the odd alteration to add a bar there since the 1970ās or 80ās when crowds were bigger and the main method of betting was on course (Moonee Valley for example basically have had the same stands since the trots started there in about 1979/80 or something). Naturally theyāve spent their financial resources looking after the stables and other facilities for the horses rather than for the patrons.
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The interior was progressively renovated from about 2000 onwards but itās on the cheaper side. Plans to redevelop have been in the pipeline a while. Some of the facilities were shocking at MV, back of house still are original in some areas.
Sandown had a decent internal renovation about 20 years ago, whilst the rooms at the extremities of the stand are wind the clock back to the early 70s. The grandstand only really gets anywhere near full for the Sundown 500.
Caulfield built the Sir Rupert Clarke stand early 90s and demolished the adjoining one (name escapes me) about 10 years ago.
Don"t forget, these places were for the most part built before off course betting was legal so the only way to have a legal punt was to turn up to the track, and they did in their tenās of thousands every Wednesday and Saturday.
Source, my first legit job was pulling beers at the tracks.
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As part of Brisbaneās potential Olympic bid, plans were unveiled for a new 80,000 seat stadium.
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Interesting! Whereabouts in Brissy are they proposing to build that?
The alternative is redeveloping The Gabba into a 60,000 seat stadium. Problem is that The Gabba is sandwiched between two streets plus East Brisbane State School on the east side. If the government decides to expand The Gabba then the school will have to go, plus sections of Vulture Street and Stanley Street outside the stadium.
They mentioned a few potential sites including redeveloping QE2 Stadium (Commonwealth Games 1982) and the EKKA Showgrounds.
I have also heard a potential site might be near Hamilton Wharf between the cruise ship terminal and the Gateway Bridge. A stadium had been proposed there back in the 90s. It would be a spectacular site right on the river beside the Gateway Bridge.
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Call me a cynical Sydneysider if you must but after the debacle that was the 2018 Gold Coast Commonwealth Games, Iām not particularly excited about the possibility of the Olympics being held in Australia again.
Now donāt get me wrong, I definitely think that South East Queensland is the most logical (and if weāre being realistic, the only) location for the Olympics if weāre to ever have them in this country again. But personally Iād much prefer the significant amount of money to be spent on providing the region with world class health and education systems instead of a 16 day event that two decades later, people will probably wish they didnāt win the rights for.
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Apart from the closing ceremony which was horrendous, what else was a debacle about the GC Games? It was seemingly well organized without any major mishaps?
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Has the Gabba option been seriously floated?
Itās probably the best long term option and is perfectly located right next to the new subway train line with excellent links to both the Brisbane CBD, airport and the Gold Coast.
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I was under the impression that most of the Gold Coast actually didnāt want the Commonwealth Games in the lead-up to the event. Whether those opinions changed in the immediate lead-up to and during the event (until the infamous Closing Ceremony of course), Iām not sure.
What I can say for sure is that from a Sydney perspective, there wasnāt really that much buzz in the media about GC2018 outside of the official broadcasters to the point that TV news habits didnāt really change.
The lack of buzz is more to do with the Commonwealth Games themselves. It wouldnāt matter where they were. Crowds stayed away from the GC because the State government overdid it with the ādisruptionā scare to the point where a lot of people from Brisbane also stayed away. They did the same thing with the G20. I doubt theyād make the same mistake again. But really itās to do with the fact the Commonwealth Games arenāt what they once were.
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