Bookings mount for SkyCity’s NZICC, a year out from opening

26th February 2025 By Natasha Jojoa Burling | natasha@propertyticker.co.nz | @propertyticker

The New Zealand International Convention Centre has more than 20 confirmed bookings and around two hundred in the pipeline.

SkyCity Entertainment Group, which owns the NZICC, said the first conference will take place during the opening month, February 2026, although it could not reveal what that will be.

Chief executive Jason Walbridge told the Ticker the group was “really excited” about the NZICC opening, which had faced a series of delays, including a large fire in October 2019 followed by the Covid-19 pandemic.

“We wanted to give certainty to our customers around an opening date, so we’ve announced February 2026, and we’re starting to build out the plans and hire people and get ready for that,” Walbridge said.

“And we’re seeing tremendous interest around people wanting to come to New Zealand.”

He said SkyCity’s sales team had been overseas for “a little while” selling conferences.

“We’ve got, I think it’s more than 20 confirmed conferences and more than 100,000 delegate days already booked and over 200 conferences in our sales pipeline.

“So we’re really encouraged with the level of interest that we’ve had.”

Those conferences will take place between 2026 and 2028.

Walbridge said a lot of commissioning work would happen between when contractor Fletcher Building handed the NZICC over in the middle of this year and when it opened in February.

“We’re going to build the capacity so that, for example, we can serve dinner to 3,000 people in our large convention hall.

“Or we can have more than 2500 people come and see a concert, or we can host corporate events or a graduation or a wedding. It’s all about hiring our people, training them, commissioning our kitchens and all the logistics and suppliers getting that all set up.”

NZICC staff will be looking across the ditch for lessons on how they can run things after SkyCity Adelaide won three awards at the 2024 Restaurant & Catering Australia Hostplus Awards for Excellence for South Australia. It took home awards in the Event/Convention Centre Caterer and Wedding Caterer categories, as well as the Major Award for the Caterer of the Year.

“We’ve just recently sponsored LIV Golf Adelaide 2025. That was a hugely successful event,” Walbridge said.

“We hosted their big opening party at our property with hundreds of golfers and celebrities and government officials. Those are the sorts of things that we see hosting here in New Zealand at the NZICC.”

SkyCity’s confirmed events for NZICC:

• International Coral Reef Symposium (ICRS) in July 2026 – estimated 2500 people
• International Society for Microbial Ecology (ISME) in August 2026 – estimated 1700 people
• International No-Dig in September 2026 – estimated 800 people
• The International Confederation of Principals Convention (ICP) in September 2026 – estimated 1600 people
• Federation of Asian and Oceania Pest Managers Associations Conference (FAOPMA) in November 2026 – estimated 2200 people
• International Dairy Federation World Dairy Summit (IDF) in November 2026 – estimated 1500 people
• International Association for Educational & Vocational Guidance Conference (IAEVG) in November 2026 estimated 1200 people
• World Congress on Public Health (WCPH) in April 2028 – estimated 2000 people
• IEEE International Geoscience and Remote Sensing Symposium (IGARSS) in July 2028 – Estimated 2000 people