SkySore broken by design

Written By: - Date published: 9:00 am, February 18th, 2015 - 14 comments
Categories: john key, national, Steven Joyce - Tags: , ,

So the Nats spent $250,000 working out that an Auckland convention center needed 3500 seats to break even, and are now about to be delivered a center wtih 3000 seats. David Fisher in The Herald:

SkyCity Convention Centre short on seats

The capacity of the proposed International Convention Centre falls under the limits the founding study on the project said was needed to make it viable for a return to the economy.

“To improve economic growth New Zealand needs a centre that can accommodate an average of 3500 delegates in a plenary session,” the report for Auckland Council and the Ministry for Tourism found in 2009.

Resource application documents filed with Auckland Council show the “Plenary Hall” has a maximum capacity of 3000 people – well short of an “average” 3500 delegates – and could drop further with talks of 10 per cent cuts to the centre. …

Further evidence of the economic “genius” of Key and Joyce.

14 comments on “SkySore broken by design ”

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  1. Clemgeopin 1
    18 February 2015 at 9:32 am

    :”Further evidence of the economic “genius” of Key and Joyce.”

    THE TWO THICKOS.

  2. phillip ure 2
    18 February 2015 at 9:43 am

    i do still prefer the original moniker:..’the eyesore’..

    ..i feel it is subtler..not so (unnecessarily) shouty/finger-pointing the obvious…

    (and altogether too too punny..).

    ..(the ss-stylings of the two esses doesn’t help lessen that trying too hard/foghorn-effect..)

    ..the ‘skysore’ would always have to be explained to bemused visitors/tourists..

    ..(which would become quickly very tiresome..)

    ..whereas ‘the eyesore’ gets a universal grin of recognition/message-received..

    ..(it’s the little/subtle things..eh..?.)

  3. Tom Gould 3
    18 February 2015 at 10:34 am

    Undoubtedly, Key and Joyce have botched this and the wily gamblers running the casino have outwitted them, but the need for an international-scale convention centre in Auckland remains. Just as does the need to build the city rail link and other projects, each of which contribute to the modern infrastructure necessary for an international city these days.

    Pity we cannot separate the two, and re-tender the thing without these clowns involved.

  4. Hayden 4
    18 February 2015 at 11:26 am

    This is going to draw in the lucrative 2379 – 2700 person conventions that The Civic can’t accommodate. Can’t fail.

  5. Sacha 5
    18 February 2015 at 12:07 pm

    It’s worse – 3000 was the *original* capacity before Joyce and Key’s ‘10%’ backdown. And Key cancelled the proper business case that was meant to follow the 2009 report. Muppets.

  6. DH 6
    18 February 2015 at 2:40 pm

    I’d like some attention paid to the elephant in the room that politicians and the media have studiously avoided yet know full well is there.

    SkyCity already have far too much political influence with their well-funded lobbying. This Convention Centre deal will give them a frightening amount of influence over both national and local politics and they’ll protected by legislation for the next 35 years.

    As owner & operator of the Convention Centre SkyCity will be taking most of the bookings. Out of town Centre users will want accommodation, entertainment, feeding and transport. SkyCity will have first dibs on them and referral rights, they’ll have other businesses hounding them for referrals. That leads to kickbacks etc, it also leads to hefty influence over the local council.

    With Govt agencies actively marketing overseas for convention goers that gives SkyCity another inside line to the Govt, they’ll talk directly a lot more about tourism and business in general and SkyCity will benefit from that in many different ways.

    SkyCity have slowly but steadily been building up a business empire revolving around their casino monopoly and this National Party seem hell bent on making sure successive governments can do nothing to curtail it. The bigger SkyCity grows the more money they’ll splash out on lobbying and the worse it will get for democracy in this country.

    It’s a big elephant.

  7. ScottGN 7
    18 February 2015 at 4:40 pm

    Old Jim Mora on NatRad seemed a bit taken aback by the learned professor from America and his absolute conviction that the thing is going to be a total lemon.

    • Skinny 7.1
      18 February 2015 at 5:12 pm

      Did the good professor say it was doubtful oversea people would not like the gambling house as the venue?

      • ScottGN 7.1.1
        18 February 2015 at 5:23 pm

        I think the main thrust of the good professor’s argument was that the convention market generally was in decline and our chances of getting any meaningful chunk of that market was overly optimistic.

        • GregJ 7.1.1.1
          18 February 2015 at 6:10 pm

          Yep – there has been steady decline over the last decade in conferences and conventions exacerbated by the Global Depression.

          Any journalist (or Treasury analyst!) worth their salt could have researched a number of articles that appeared around 2010-2012 which highlighted this decline and what that would mean for a new NZ centre – articles like this one.

          Coupled with the distance required to travel to NZ and increased travel costs it always was a dodgy proposition that a large centre was actually necessary or economic.

      • Skinny 7.1.2
        18 February 2015 at 5:59 pm

        *doubtful they would like.