Eden Park News: Perspectives

“It’s on in Auckland.” This was the theme Annie Dundas from Tātaki Auckland Unlimited discussed at an event I attended this morning as part of the New Zealand Events Association conference. It is a simple phrase, but for me, it captures something important. People want to live in a city where things are happening, a…

And why I’m calling for the establishment of a long-term, cross-party approach to attracting internationally signficant events to New Zealand 40,112 football fans came through our gates on Sunday to watch Tottenham Hotspur play Auckland FC, setting a new attendance record for a senior men’s football match in New Zealand. While this is a significant…

“Eden Park for an All Blacks game is peak New Zealand brand coming to life.” I came across this statement recently in a LinkedIn post, and it resonated with me. Saturday night brought together everything that makes an All Blacks test at Eden Park significant. A sold-out crowd of almost 50,000 fans filled the stands,…

There is a particular feeling that builds at Eden Park before an All Blacks match. You notice it in the days leading up to the game and, by the time the gates open, the anticipation is unmistakable. Then the bilingual national anthem begins, the haka echoes around a sold-out Eden Park, and The Fortress comes…

Leading New Zealand’s national stadium has always felt like more than leading a venue. Eden Park is a stadium, but it is also a place of connection where people come together to experience sports matches, concerts, cultural and community events, functions and conferences, and leave with moments that stay with them long after they’ve gone.…

I was recently given a Blake Weston original artwork to mark my 10 years as CEO of Eden Park. Blake called the piece The Man Behind the Moments, which was a generous description, but what I appreciated most was not seeing myself in the artwork; it was seeing Eden Park through someone else’s eyes. His…

Watching the FIFA World Cup 2026™, it is impossible not to notice the premium global brands that sit alongside the tournament. Kia, Qatar Airways and Coca-Cola are not there by accident. They are FIFA partners aligning themselves with one of the few platforms capable of capturing attention at a truly global scale. But the strongest…

One of the ideas we talked about during the Harvard Business School programme was the concept of the blockbuster: the event, product or experience that cuts through, captures attention and creates momentum around everything else. For audiences, stadiums and cities, this idea is increasingly important. A blockbuster event is not simply a large crowd, a…

One of the biggest shifts we’re seeing in global sport and entertainment is that the event itself is no longer the whole product. A sports match, concert or major cultural event may be the reason people come through the gates, but the value of a venue is increasingly shaped by everything that sits around it:…

The famous line from the 1989 film Field of Dreams: “If you build it, they will come”, might work beautifully as a movie idea; it’s definitely not a stadium strategy. In the real world, people do not go to a stadium just because the stadium exists. They go because there is a reason to be…

When the FIFA World Cup begins next month, most people will watch the players and celebrate the moments on the pitch. And while they might notice how good the grass looks, few will think about the pitch itself, or the years of science, planning and precision required to ensure it performs at the highest possible…

With the City Rail Link due to open later this year, the focus is naturally on how the new network operates – the trains, stations, routes and timetables that will change the way people move around Auckland. But the broader conversation is about what that connectivity enables. For Auckland, the CRL is not only a…