Brisbane 2032 Olympics: Arena needed for new world city
Brisbane faces being embarrassingly thrust on to the world stage in 2032 without a major inner-city indoor entertainment venue. HOW IT COMPARES
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Brisbane faces being embarrassingly thrust on to the world stage in 2032 without a major inner-city indoor entertainment venue when it hosts the Olympic and Paralympic Games.
The 2032 host city’s existing indoor venue pales in comparison to the games’ next and previous homes of Los Angeles and Paris, as well as Barcelona, Berlin and Dubai in not having an arena that can host between 17,000 and 20,000 people within 5km of its CBD.
The location of the 13,500-capacity Brisbane Entertainment Centre also does not compare well with those in smaller Australian capitals such as Perth and Adelaide, which both have their major indoor arenas within 5km of their CBD.
The future of the proposed 17,000-seat $2.5bn Brisbane Arena remains uncertain, with the state government expected to axe the project and try use the cash for other projects when it reveals its 2032 venues plan at The Courier-Mail’s Future Brisbane event on Tuesday.
Premier David Crisafulli met on Wednesday in Brisbane with Prime Minister Anthony Albanese and it’s understood discussions were productive.
Prime Minister Anthony Albanese, in Queensland for a third consecutive day on Thursday, tripled down on the federal government’s plan to spend the $2.5bn it had committed to the arena.
Mr Albanese, speaking on Nova Brisbane, said while the state government’s position on the Brisbane Arena was not clear, he was committed to the $2.5bn project.
“Importantly the whole objective there wasn’t just to provide something for the Olympic Games in 2032, but to provide a legacy so that big artists when they come to Australia want to play at a venue that is close to the city, that’s world class,” he said.
Paris’ 20,300-seat Accor Arena is home to major events and hosted the artistic and trampoline gymnastics events and basketball, just 3.4km from its city centre.
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The 20,000-seat Crypto.com Arena is 3.3km from the heart of Los Angeles and is home to their national basketball and ice hockey team, and hosts major concerts including Kylie Minogue coming up in May.
Barcelona’s Palau Sant Jordi is 4.5km from its CBD and can hold 17,960, Dubai’s 17,000-seat Coca-Cola Arena is 1.2km from its CBD, while Berlin’s 17,000-seat Uber Arena is 4km from its city centre.
Closer to home in Perth, who has a population of about 400,000 fewer than Brisbane, has in its CBD the 15,500 seat RAC Arena, which was recently recognised as the best indoor arena in Australia for the second year in a row.
The arena, which welcomed 677,619 patrons in 2023-24, is just 5.2km from Perth’s main outdoor venue Optus Stadium.
By comparison, Suncorp Stadium and the Brisbane Entertainment Centre at Boondall are 23km apart without taking a toll road.
In Adelaide, the 11,300-capacity indoor entertainment centre is less than 5km from the CBD and the city’s main outdoor stadium the Adelaide Oval.
Mr Albanese told Nova he had received feedback that the location of the Brisbane Entertainment Centre at Boondall didn’t offer the same atmosphere for “gigs”.
“I hear from my Brisbane friends that travelling north there, to where the current venue is … it’s difficult for people to gather beforehand or afterwards to catch up and have a drink, talk about the gig, what they liked, what they played, what they didn’t play all that,” he said.
ASM Global CEO Harvey Lister said if the city was master planned today, there couldn’t be an argument against all major venues being co-located within or close to the CBD.
He said the entertainment centre at Boondall was originally designed, built and known as the Brisbane Bicentenary Sports Complex to be the gymnastics and boxing venue for the proposed 1992 Olympic Games.
“This is Brisbane’s first opportunity to get a purpose-built indoor entertainment centre rather than a converted gymnastics venue,” he said.
“It would be a big disappointment if Brisbane didn’t achieve a major indoor arena out of an event like the Olympic Games.
“But at the moment, I think it’s realistic that we have to allow governments to make their decisions, because they have a whole lot of financial and other pressures on them, and governments have politics to deal with too.”
Under the Intergovernmental Agreement signed by Mr Albanese and former Labor premier Annastacia Palaszczuk in February 2023, the Commonwealth agreed to provide a total capped financial contribution of up to $3.435bn.
Up to $2.5bn was explicitly for the Brisbane Arena with up to $935m for minor venues.
“We’ll await the review of the state government … and we of course will listen to their views. But we do have an agreement that that’s what our money’s for,” Mr Albanese said.
“We want Brisbane to be a huge success and we want Australia to be as close to the top of the medal tally as we can be.”
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