Te Pae opens in Christchurch with 100 events booked for 2022

Friday, 17 December 2021

In late 2021, Christchurch's $450m convention centre finally opened its doors for events.

After years of planning and four years of construction, Christchurch’s $450 million convention centre Te Pae has officially opened.

While most of the public won’t get inside until an open day on February 13, dignitaries and media were given a look at the facility at an opening ceremony on Friday.

A few private functions are booked for this month, followed by 100 events throughout 2022. Te Pae is forecast to bring $60m a year into Christchurch’s economy.

Funded by the Crown as an earthquake rebuild project, it has taken 3.3 million hours of labour to build. Te Pae is opening 14 months later than expected after Covid-19 delayed its construction and commissioning.

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Dignitaries and other invited guests check out Te Pae on Friday.

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John Bridgman, chief executive of Crown company Ōtākaro, which has been in charge of getting Te Pae built, said it was “very exciting” to have the building completed.

“The building is absolutely fabulous, it’s going to be such an asset for Christchurch.”

Next year’s 100 booked events will include 50 multi-day conferences, including 14 medical conferences.

Other bookings are for seminars, banquets, exhibitions and expos, including the Smart Christchurch Innovation expo in February, Armageddon Expo in March, and Winetopia wine festival in August.

Together they are expected bring more than 70,000 people into the city during 2022.

Twelve of next year’s events will be international and scheduled for the second half of the year.

Te Pae has opened after four years of construction.

Bridgman said the numbers attending Te Pae in the next year, along with the partners and families they would bring to the city, “translates into a lot of accommodation and hospitality – a lot of people spending in Christchurch as they come to visit”.

Te Pae general manager Ross Steele said Te Pae was the first new-generation convention centre to open in New Zealand.

Wellington’s facility and the national convention centre in Auckland are still under construction.

Steele said there was “a solid roster of events” booked for Te Pae from 2023 onwards.

An 18.5-metre long screen is part of the auditorium,

They were now looking several years ahead at long-term bookings, he said.

“This is a building for the community as much as it to drive economic value. It’s a stunning building and people will want to see what it has.”

The banquet room can be used for meetings and seminars.

Te Pae could function well under the Government’s Covid orange and green traffic light settings. A contingency plan was ready in case the region went into the more restrictive red setting, he said.

The building overlooks the Avon River, Victoria Square and Cathedral Square. While large for Christchurch, on a global scale it is a boutique convention centre.

It has come in slightly under budget at just under $450m, of which $240m was spent on construction, $74m on land and $34m on professional services.

The 43,000 exterior tiles represent Canterbury’s braided rivers, with the river theme carried through to the shape of the windows and the carpet design.

The reception area has a 2-tonne marble reception desk, timber columns, and an illuminated artwork called Hana, designed by Ngāi Tahu sculptor Loni Hutchinson.

The 1400-seat auditorium has a 9-metre by 18.5m screen and can be divided into two 700-seat spaces.

Next door the banquet hall can seat 1000 people and can be used for meetings and seminars.

Downstairs are several meeting rooms, and a 2800-square-metre exhibition hall that can be expanded to 3300sqm or divided up.

The building will be operated by Australian firm ASM Global and has 200 staff. Fifty are full-time, while 150 will work part-time providing technical, hospitality and security services for events.

Megan Crum, head of business events for ChristchurchNZ, called the Te Pae opening “a momentous shift in our city’s capability to host business events”.

ChristchurchNZ has calculated that attendees at business events spend an average of $375 per day, compared with $232 for international visitors and $155 for domestic travellers.