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Description
As the largest indoor venue in New Zealand, the arena has found its place on the international tour circuit, and regularly appears on Top 10 lists of venues its size in the world. A big part of its appeal to overseas acts and promoters is its ability to host a variety of artists in any one of a number of formats.
At maximum capacity, the venue will seat up to 12,000 people but reduction curtaining and retractable seating makes it one of the most versatile venues in the country. Our roof loading is 72 tonnes, and we've comfortably hosted shows as big as Roger Waters' The Wall Live, Lady Gaga's Monster Ball, Beyonce's Mrs Carter World Tour and Metallica's Death Magnetic tour.
Our Freeflow Forum Mode allows for a great gig with elastic walls. A standing floor gives access via stairs to the seating tiers, all unreserved, allowing the audience to move around to sit or dance as they choose. The flexibility of this mode came into its own at 2012's Macklemore & Ryan Lewis show, which had jumped from 2 smaller venues and grew and grew to fill the room. Our reduction curtains are rigged on the day, allowing us to mould the room to suit the attendance. Not only this but we ask the audience at time of purchase whether they are likely to sit or stand, and we can tailor the stage location and drape positions in proportions to suit anything from 2,000 to 5,200. Freeflow Forum has been a popular choice for promoters since we introduced it five years ago, and we have enjoyed some excellent gigs with artists including Fatboy Slim & Skrillex, New Order, The Stone Roses and Slash in this format.
If a more luxurious theatre-style event is what you are looking for, our Theatre Mode has proved extremely popular with audiences for Emmylou Harris, Engelbert Humperdinck and NZ's own Sol3 Mio. Using our plush banquet seats in the stalls, and plenty of red carpet, the tier seats load from stairs direct from the stalls, making a seamless room of faces, and not a crash barrier or railing in sight! Theatre Mode works well from 1800 people up to around 3,500.
if a truly intimate venue is what you need, look no further than The Tuning Fork which is the perfect setting for smaller shows, holding up to 300 in a relaxed, club-like setting.
Whatever the scale of your event, you'll find we can put on quite a show.
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