John Bridgman: The Influencers

We already have 65 events on the books for the first two years at Te Pae, Christchurch’s new convention and exhibition centre, but you will see the marketing and promotion of this facility go up another gear with AEG Ogden now in town to provide day to day management of the centre.

AEG Ogden is a leading venue management company in the Asia Pacific region. It already manages convention and exhibition centres in Brisbane, Cairns, Darwin, Kuala Lumpur, Oman and Sydney, along with Suncorp Stadium in Brisbane and arenas in Brisbane, Sydney, Newcastle and Perth.

This huge international reach and established reputation in the highly competitive conventions and exhibitions sector is why we selected AEG Ogden to run Te Pae.  Put simply, the more effective the operator – the more events Christchurch attracts – the greater the boost for the hotels, bars, shops, restaurants and tourism ventures around the region.

The events already booked come from the health, science, education and professional services sectors and will bring 54,000 delegates to Christchurch from around New Zealand and the world. We expect the economic benefit of these visitors to Christchurch and Canterbury to be around $60 million, much of it in the traditionally quieter ‘shoulder season’, either side of summer.

Te Pae will host its first event in the latter part of 2020, so the level of interest we’re already experiencing is not only encouraging but reminds us why a world-class convention centre was identified early on as an Anchor Project that could make a significant contribution to the regeneration of Christchurch.