AEG Ogden managed-International Convention Centre Sydney (ICC Sydney) launched a virtual tour of the venue, on track to open in December 2016, to a global audience at the Asia-Pacific Incentives and Meetings Expo (AIME) in Melbourne on Feb. 24.
Kicking off AIME’s media program at Australia’s largest business events tradeshow, ICC Sydney, for the first time, provided an animated movie that explores the new Sydney city waterfront venue and its magnificent views.
ICC Sydney Chief Executive Officer and Director of Convention Centres for AEG Ogden Geoff Donaghy said the market presentation blended the latest in 3D modelling with live footage to give the 3,500 hosted buyers, media and visitors to AIME an opportunity to experience the flexibility, connectivity and prime location of Australia’s first fully integrated international convention, exhibition and entertainment precinct.
“Being able to experience a virtual walk-through of ICC Sydney is an extremely exciting moment. The animation allows you to appreciate the scale and superior quality of the rooms, the connectivity provided across the venue, which is essentially three inner-city blocks, and the integration with Darling Harbour’s dynamic business and entertainment precinct. By overlaying the city with animation, the virtual experience is able to highlight the iconic Sydney views afforded by the smart, contemporary design,” Donaghy said.
“We have been working off plans and renders until now, so it is terrific to see ICC Sydney come to life in this way, less than two years out from opening.”
The three minute movie explores key assets across ICC Sydney’s 70 rooms, including:
- Grand Ballroom – set to become Australia’s largest ballroom, this room will accommodate 2,000 people in banquet mode and 3,500 in cocktail mode. Equipped with an elite AV experience, the room breaks out to the top floor of the convention center featuring views over Sydney Harbour.
- Event Deck – a 5,000 square-meter open-air, rooftop space connected to the upper halls of the exhibition center. The deck will host exhibitions, cocktail parties and banquets of up to 1,800 people. The deck also features a permanent bar and lounge that, when not booked for private events, is open to the public.
- Plenary theatres – ICC Sydney is capable of holding three concurrent, self-sufficient major conventions, each with their own pre-function, meeting and catering facilities within the convention center.
- The tiered Darling Harbour Theatre seats 2,500
- The tiered Pyrmont Theatre seats 1,000
- The flat floor Cockle Bay Room seats 800.
- ICC Sydney Theatre – with an 8,000-seat capacity, this ultramodern theatre will host large international conventions as well as touring entertainment acts, enhancing the active precinct by day and night.
- The Gallery – a 2,400 square-meter room to host exhibitions and cocktail receptions of up to 2,000 people.
- Exhibition halls – the venue features a total of 35,000 square meters of exhibition space, including The Gallery. Presented in a smart, stacked layout to capitalize on the inner-city location and provide much improved loading facilities. The halls feature customized registration and ticketing areas and 20 dedicated meeting rooms.
- Level 4 halls – 13,600 square meters of exhibition space
- Level 1 halls – 19,000 square meters of exhibition space
- Dedicated meeting rooms, many featuring balconies and views over Tumbalong Park and the city skyline.
The virtual tour of ICC Sydney is one of a series of marketing tools to be released in February to equip the expanding team to share the ICC Sydney experience with clients well before the venue opens in December 2016.
Business Events Sydney (BESydney) CEO, Lyn Lewis-Smith, said the virtual footage of the venue was a welcome addition to Sydney’s toolkit and was confident that the ability to show clients through the new facilities, even virtually, would help with its efforts to secure even more international events for ICC Sydney.
“The world has been waiting for a sneak peek of Sydney’s most exciting new event space. This realistic new footage will add a fantastic new dimension to how we’re able to showcase the venue, both inside and out, to our global clients. It will give decision makers even more confidence in Sydney’s ability to deliver outstanding event experiences,” Lewis-Smith commented.
BESydney has secured more than 20 large international conventions for ICC Sydney, including The International Association of Restructuring Insolvency Bankruptcy Professionals (INSOL) World Quadrennial Congress 2017, the International Bar Association (IBA) Annual Conference 2017, International Chamber of Commerce World Chambers Federation (ICC WCF) World Chambers Congress in 2017, World Accountants Congress 2018 and Sibos 2018.
