And for our last trick before leaving on a 10 day break, we give you an in depth interview with Guy Ngata. Guy is the General Manager of the new AEG joint venture, the massive, crazy, UFO looking entertainment centre that is currently servicing Shanghai’s World Expo.
In February 2010, New Zealand national Guy Ngata arrived in Shanghai. His mission: to manage, organize and open what is currently the Shanghai Expo Cultural Centre, and which in November 2010 will pass over to a joint venture between AEG, the NBA and the Oriental Pearl Tower Group (OPG). The centre will from then be named the Mercedes Benz Arena: the brand have naming rights on the building for 10 years, something that has cost them a cool US$65,000,000 (Guy did not comment on nor confirm the commercial elements of the deal – these numbers were discovered elsewhere). The consortium have agreed to a 100 show minimum/ year to honor their side of the deal…
The Radar sat down with Guy this week to find out a bit more about the man and the mission.
Guy comes from New Zealand. Starting in 2007, he was CEO of the Vector Arena, a 12,000 seat multi-purpose arena in Auckland and New Zealand’s first. Demand was strong from the outset, although seasonal. Around 400,000 tickets were sold at the venue each year.
After a grueling interview process, Guy was offered the job in Shanghai at the turn of 2010. The UFO (as the building is referred to) is one of the biggest of its type in the world (no surprise there, really). It has a 1.8m square foot footprint, and is modeled on the Staples Centre in LA (though of course it is way bigger) – a mix of venue and commerce that creates a hedonists playground under one roof. Another recent example of this multi purpose concept is London’s O2, which is also an AEG venture.
The Shanghai venue is made up of the following (the numbers refer to levels):
B1 An ice-rink and the 750 capacity music club
1. VIP access and the arena floor
2. Public Concourse and concessions
3 & 4. 82 VIP suites with capacities of between 12 and 45
5. Public upper seating & concessions
6. 6 movie theatres / Restaurants
In addition there are multiple restaurants and retail outlets across 3 of the 8 levels.
The roof will hold a gargantuan 180 tonnes with 90 over the stage, 60 in the middle and 40 at the opposite end. Considering one of the the heaviest arena touring setups ever was last year’s Britney Spears tour at a 90 tonne hang, the venue should be well future proofed. The arena will hold up to 18,000 people for sporting events and 14-15,000 (he thinks) for end stage ones. The final details are still being worked out with the local authorities for that capacity.
Guy is the General Manager of the Joint Venture and is responsible for every aspect of the working venue. He has a full time team of 84, with things like cleaning and security outsourced. AEG have had 5 highly experienced “trainers” at the facility for months, with the 3rd one leaving this week. Don’t doubt the company’s commitment to making this work and this is another example of the massive transference of knowledge in highly technical areas from the West to China.
He calls the 6 months of Expo the “hardest soft opening” of a venue ever. 184 days of operations straight, 24/7, before the real Mercedes Benz Arena opens for business. The challenge, of course, will be when the Expo ends – at the moment, the venue is the beneficiary of 550,000 expo visitors a day, of which 30-50,000 pass through the building. In the first 60 days, the venue has done over 450,000 performance tickets, which is more than the Staples Centre does in one year.
The venue will be, when Expo finishes, in the proverbial middle of nowhere. Although there are now good transport links, residents of large Chinese cities are generally loathe to travel too far from home base for their entertainment. Add to this the competition that the MB Arena will face from established venues (the more central concert halls on Renmin Square and downtown, and also the bigger and established Grand Stage, Changning Gymnasium and Hongkou Stadium), then it is easy to see the size and scale of the challenge.
Still, these purpose built arenas make things very convenient for promoters, and the joint venture aren’t just trying to put on music events. There will also be a strong focus on attracting family events, made for TV extravaganzas, and importantly corporate events. With a cubic space that large, and the flexibility that cubic space affords, expect to see creativity flow.
We spoke at length about the ongoing conversations that are happening between Guy and the local promoters, because of course MB Arena will need external promoters to survive. The man has a tremendous respect for promoters, because those that do it, love it, and those that survive are obviously successful and have an innate understanding of what works in their market. The MB Arena will be looking to work as closely as possible with every kind of show promoter and they have a great starter-for-10. A series of 10 Wong Fei shows slated for November will be a significant statement of intent (those are our words, not his – as of yet, he cannot confirm that the Wong Fei shows will officially happen).
It’s a brave new world here in China and these guys have certainly taken the bull by the horns. We hope it lasts longer than the AEG x Wukesong episode, because China does need professional companies dealing with these venues professionally.