Delayed convention centre loses events but rebooks others over Covid-19

Friday, 29 May 2020

Take an animated look at the yet-to-be-completed Christchurch convention centre, Te Pae.

Schedules are being juggled at Christchurch's upcoming convention centre as it deals with cancellations and postponements from the Covid-19 crisis.

The $475 million Te Pae was due to open this October. It is now expected to be ready in early 2021 after the lockdown halted and then slowed construction.

Te Pae staff have been working to retrieve cancelled events and looking for timeslots to rebook others.

Eight bookings from October onwards had been cancelled, but most of those affected were rescheduled, Te Pae general manager Ross Steele said. Two of the cancelled events might be rebooked.

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Steele said despite the Covid crisis they now have 67 bookings, up from 52 at the end of last year.

Te Pae estimates the events will bring $40 million-plus of economic benefit to the city.

An artist's impression of what the inside of the facility will look like.

Talks with event organisers who lost bookings after a construction site fire at the New Zealand International Convention Centre in Auckland have not yet translated to bookings at Te Pae.

Construction on the site resumed after New Zealand shifted to alert level 3 level three a month ago, but with fewer workers to meet workplace distancing rules.

A spokesperson for Ōtākaro, the government rebuild company in charge of the project, said they would provide a revised opening date as soon as possible but needed more details about border and distancing restrictions.

One event booked for October, the annual Labour Weekend Mustang car convention, will now be held elsewhere in Christchurch at a venue yet to be announced.

Another October event, the four-day Intecol international wetlands conference, will be held at Te Pae at a later date. The conference will have 1000 delegates and estimated to be worth a total of $1.8m to the city.

Also postponed are the three-day New Zealand College of Midwives conference with 600 delegates, and the three-day New Zealand Dental Association conference with 350 delegates.

Those events with delegates coming from further than Australia have been scheduled for later in 2021 or 2022 because of uncertainties over global travel.

Steele said Te Pae's ability to 'retain a significant level of business and even take on new bookings' during the pandemic proved that people still wanted that face-to-face connection.

One recent booking is the Aotearoa New Zealand Anaesthesia Scientific meeting, scheduled for November 2021.

Convenor Ben van der Griend said they expected the event to attract at least 400 to 500 delegates.

“Most of the delegates will be coming from all over New Zealand, however, we also attract a good number from Australia and further afield,” van der Griend said.