Seating to assist with Nelson events

2 April 2015

Nelson City Council has concluded a deal to purchase stadium seating to support major events in the city.

The first event to benefit from the secured seating will be the Crusaders v Hurricanes Super Rugby match to be held at Trafalgar Park in May, which will utilise a 6,000 seat addition to the ground.

The lack of seating has previously been identified as an issue for attracting major events to Trafalgar Park, Saxton Oval and other council grounds. Hiring temporary seating imposes a significant cost and uncertainty on event organisers, which has acted as a deterrent in the past for using Nelson venues. An opportunity recently arose, out of the conclusion of the ICC Cricket World Cup, to purchase 6,000 seats, which had a positive benefit to Council when compared to initial investigations to increase ground capacity.

The addition of this temporary seating will significantly increase capacity at the venues and improve the audience and spectator experience. Mayor Rachel Reese signified the importance of increasing capacity at our venues. "Council is focussed on delivering maximum benefit from our existing facilities. We want to sweat these assets hard to deliver maximum return to the city. This purchase enables us to compete with financial and capacity certainty for larger events.”

Purchasing the seats cost less than $115 per seat compared to a one off hire of $45 per seat. The seats were purchased out of Australia and will arrive in Nelson later this month.

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