This transcript has been lightly edited by AI
Sean: From a stadium point of view, we've talked a lot about AFL, it's an AFL owned assetbut adaptability and being able to take on other content is crucial. You have Big Bash, I was lucky enough to go to see Pink earlier this year and her run of shows, filling it out night after night. An amazing show. When you're running a stadium, are you always looking for new content? What are some of the things you're looking out for, especially having an adaptable stadium like Marvel is?
Scott Fitzgerald: Yeah, we do 43, 45, 46 games of AFL footy a year. Hugely important AFL owned asset. I think the key for us is flexibility, adaptability, dynamism, and we're very good at that. If you look at the start of this year, we had 300,000 people through the doors at Marvel before we'd bounced the ball of footy. Two Pink shows, 48 hours later we had a Matildas Olympic qualifier against Uzbekistan. Five days later, we had two more Pink shows and we were able to present a world-class surface for the Matildas in between those two. And then 10 days after Pink, presenting an AFL standard elite surface for our first game here for North Melbourne Fremantle. We have the title of the busiest multi-purpose stadium in the world. I think that's been fact-checked by the Guinness Book of Records.
We're very proud of that position. We're known for getting things done, things that are challenging and tricky, but also for the range of different content that we bring to life. We've got a four show run of Coldplay coming up later this year, very different stage set up, lots going on there, but a wonderful show. Then a week later, you've got Pearl Jam coming in, very different again, servicing a very different set of fans. And then a week later, a whole different set of fans come in for the AusX Open dirt bikes. Then two weeks later, many thousands of people coming down here for the RMIT graduation day. Five days after that, you go into BBL cricket and so it goes. The diversity of content here is one of our strengths, but I think our team's ability to activate that, particularly in tight turnaround windows, is something that we're very proud of and holds us in really good stead internationally.
Sean: And you're always looking for new things. Like you said before, when you were young in your career and asking someone, “Hey, what should we do?” You want answers from your team to say this stadium can do things like stadium golf.
Scott Fitzgerald: Yeah, that's a really good point you touch on. We talk about the 70 days that we've got stuff on. Ask people who's the act you want? My mom wants Bruce Springsteen. I said, “Mom, it's not quite that easy.” But I think outside of big event days, you look at stadiums by nature, there's more dark days than lit up ones. We do 500 plus business events that happen throughout the course of weeks and weekends. And we do have gaps.
Sean: Ha ha.
Scott Fitzgerald: But I think items like stadium golf, we had an NBA finals party here a few weeks ago. We had a Super Bowl party at the start of the year. We have a Firelight Labyrinth in B1 car park where we've turned the B1 car park into an immersive lightscape, sound movement, installations, tied in with the city of Melbourne's Firelight Festival. What we're trying to do here is things that people don't expect a stadium to do. And we've got more plans, a thousand ideas. 500 we road test and go, “It's just not going to work.” But the other 500 we look at how do we go from concept to implementation? And again, what you end up seeing is the six, seven, eight, nine, 10 that we feel like as a venue we can deliver. But importantly, the things that people are potentially going to go and do somewhere else that we can surface here and help us shape and reposition what the stadium's here to do, which is ultimately deliver extraordinary experiences for everybody every day. That's ultimately what we're about, whether that's an arena event, football, concert or otherwise. We're always looking for new things to do.
