Completed stadium passes the test

THE new stand at GMHBA Stadium has passed its first test – hosting the biggest crowd at an AFL game at Kardinia Park since 1981.

About 39,500 people came to the ground on Saturday night to see the Cats play the Saints, including filling almost all of the new 14,000-capacity Joel Selwood Stand, the centrepiece of the stadium’s fifth and final stage of redevelopment.

Kardinia Park Stadium Trust chief executive officer Gerald Griffin agreed that having the Joel Selwood Stand and the stadium’s final 40,000-capacity configuration tested with a regular season AFL match was not unlike sending a child off to school for the first time.

 

“That’s a very good comparison… leading into the event, you are nervous, but you are excited that you’re finally there,” he said.

“Overall, things went pretty well.

There’s always lots of little things you need to tighten up, either with the build or with our event operations that use the new building, but overall the night went pretty smoothly.

“The analogy I often use in sports stadiums is on every game days, there’s three teams playing.

 

Two of them run around on the field, chasing the ball or the leather or whatever, and the third team is the team that’s dotted throughout the grandstand trying to service the needs of the fans as efficiently and effectively as possible.”

He said the trust had been effectively running two projects over the past 12 months: firstly, building the Joel Selwood Stand; and secondly, the trust’s operations group learning how to use the new stand and the stadium’s facilities now based there, including the away team change rooms, stadium management and crowd management.

Mr Griffin paid tribute to his predecessors at the trust who had driven the first four stages of the stadium’s redevelopment.

“There were some people in the room [at the VIP function] who set out on this journey 20-odd years ago who were still there to see it through to the end, so it’s an even bigger relief for them who had the dream of trying to lift the whole stadium to a better place,” he said.

 

The Geelong Cats’ men’s and women’s sides will remain the major tenants and users of GMHBA Stadium, Mr Griffin said, but the stadium’s “diet” from now on would include cricket – including Big Bash League games and possibly Australian women’s cricket in the future – concerts, local football, entertainment such as Nitro Circus, and special events.

He said GMBHA Stadium could potentially be used between 40 to 44 weekends every year “to some degree”.

“That’s a pretty big high water mark, but you’ve got to have a goal.

“It’s a venue that’s very much designed and set up to handle almost any kind of use now.”