Hip hop Hamilton gets The Star shining

Next week’s grand opening of Broadway’s Hamilton is set to give Sydney’s The Star a boost at a time when rival Crown’s gambling floors are still closed.

Jason Arrow as Alexander Hamilton in the Australian Production. Picture: Daniel Boud

Next week’s grand opening of Broadway hip hop musical Hamilton is set to give the Star Entertainment Group a boost at a time when rival Crown’s gambling floors at Sydney’s Barangaroo are still closed.

With a glittering “Show Your Style” red carpet opening set for next Saturday (March 27), after a week of previews, the long-running smash hit musical is set to attract local and interstate tourists and theatre goers to Star’s Sydney Lyric theatre, a location traditionally a little out of the way of the Sydney CBD in Pyrmont.

With Harry Potter and the Cursed Child reopened in Melbourne and AFL returning to the MCG this week, the Hamilton opening — six years after its Broadway launch — is a sign that life is returning to the heart of Australia’s two major capitals after a year of COVID-19 induced on and off again lockdowns.

Star chief executive Matt Bekier says that after a year of stay at home COVID-19 lifestyles Australian consumers of 2021 need more attractions to lure them out of their domestic cocoons.

“Entertainment is becoming a more important part of the post COVID-19 environment,” he tells The Weekend Australian.

“Everyone has got used to watching Netflix. We need more entertainment on the table to get people to come out.”

Producer Michael Cassel was able to win Hamilton — the story of Alexander Hamilton, one of the founding fathers of the United States — for the 2,000 seat Sydney Lyric Theatre, in May 2019 with some help from the New South Wales government.

With Sydney faring much better than Melbourne in terms of COVID-19 lockdowns in 2020 and 2021, the decision to open in Sydney proved to be even more well founded.

For Star, which was forced to close for about ten weeks from March 23 last year, reopening on a restricted basis from June 1, it provides the potential for a strong turnaround in fortunes.

Since June restrictions in NSW have been gradually eased, with the Sydney Lyric able to open Hamilton at full capacity and restaurant and bar patrons in NSW now allowed to stand up when they drink.

“We are excited about Hamilton,” Bekier says. “Ticket sales have been fantastic.

“It is going to run for a long time. It’s part of a push we are going to do with more entertainment: more concerts and live music.”

At its height, the Sydney Star would get as many as 80,000 people a day coming to the property.

Star CEO Matt Bekierat The Lyric Theatre in Pyrmont. Picture: Britta Campion

Before the opening of Hamilton, it was running at 40,000 to 60,000 a day.

Star’s casino in Sydney’s Pyrmont has traditionally been the biggest money spinner for the group, which also has hotels and casinos in Brisbane and the Gold Coast.

The group turned over more than $1.8bn a year before COVID-19.

COVID-19, and the continued expansion of Star’s properties in Brisbane and the Gold Coast, has turned the tables.

The Star’s businesses in Queensland have been doing well, with the state’s much freer pandemic restrictions allowing the Star’s premises in that state to open up fully from July 3 last year, while its Sydney property has been much harder hit.

“Pre-COVID-19 Sydney generated 60 per cent of our revenues,” Bekier says.

By next year, he says, with expansion plans currently in place, he expects that Queensland will generate 60 per cent of Star’s revenues.

Star’s properties in the Queensland, particularly on the Gold Coast, have been doing well with landlocked Australians unable to travel overseas.

“January was our biggest month on record for the Gold Coast,” Bekier says.

The opening of Hamilton comes as Star’s potential competitor, Crown’s six star property at Barangaroo, has still been unable to open its gaming floors as a result of a finding by a report to the NSW Liquor and Gaming Authority by former NSW Supreme Court judge Patricia Bergin SC that the company was unsuitable to hold a gaming license in the state.

Crown had originally planned to open the hotel, restaurant and gaming business in mid-December.

While the hotel and restaurants opened in late December, the gaming floors remain shut while Crown negotiates with NSW regulators.

Victoria’s royal commission into Crown’s suitability to hold a license is set to start next Wednesday (March 24).

Producer Michael Cassel estimates that Hamilton will generate some 350 jobs from the production itself, with more flowing from restaurants and bars and interstate visitors who will come to Sydney to see the show.

While initial plans in 2019 were for the production to attract tourists from the Asia Pacific region, Cassel says that bookings to date show 30 per cent coming from interstate to Sydney.

He is still estimating that the production will generate some $84m in visitor spending to Sydney.

“We have had to change our marketing plans,” he admits.

“We had initially expected that there would be a market for international tourists from the Asia Pacific region but that is not possible quite yet.

“But the domestic audience from interstate will sustain it for a long time. People will see it as an excuse to visit Sydney.”

Cassel says it is a testament to NSW’s good management of the pandemic that patrons

are confident to come back to Sydney theatre in such numbers.

“It’s been a journey of more than four years to bring Hamilton to the Sydney Lyric at The Star,” the chief executive of Foundation Theatres, Graeme Kearns, tells The Weekend Australian.

“After a tough year when we want to bring great theatre experiences to Australia’s theatregoers, it’s perfectly timed.

“We had to shut our theatre doors a year ago and so many people who work in the industry were out of work: performers, technicians, wardrobe and makeup staff, ushers, bar staff – hundreds of people from the Sydney Lyric alone.”

Kearns, whose company also owns the Capitol Theatre in Sydney’s Haymarket, reopened it on December 1 with the popular children’s musical Frozen.

“When we reopened our doors last year, we started to save an industry from a devastating decline,” he says.

“Now we’ve retained the capability to stage first class productions again, and Hamilton is the living manifestation of that success.”

Kearns predicts that Hamilton will see months of full and near full houses for the Sydney Lyric, which will flow on to Star’s restaurants and bars.

The lack of foot traffic as a result of COVID-19 at the Star last year has seen the announcement of the closure of the two-hatted restaurant, Momofuku Seibo, after nearly 10 years at the Star.

The restaurant, which opened in 2011, was forced to close its doors for 18 weeks last year. With its lease up for renewal the Caribbean style restaurant, the first overseas venture of New York chef David Chang, has just announced it will close its doors in June.

The opening of Hamilton in Sydney comes at the theatres of New York and London are still dark due to COVID-19.

The Sydney production is currently the only production of the smash hit Hamilton currently playing anywhere round the world.

“The efforts of all Australians, and our governments to control COVID-19 here has given us the unique opportunity to safely reopen our theatres and welcome theatregoers back to the performing arts,” Kearns says.

“We are incredibly fortunate to be able to be among the only people in the world who can go to the theatre at this time in history.

“Patrons are snapping up the opportunity with gusto.”