Optus Stadium celebrates its 1 year anniversary
The stadium officially kicked off by welcoming the city to the new home of sport and entertainment with the Community Open Day on the 21st of January 2018, and has since produced numerous world-class events and memorable experiences that Perth will never forget.
It has already been a full year since Perth’s favourite venue, Optus Stadium opened its doors after an amazing first year of achievements - can you believe it?! The stadium officially kicked off by welcoming the city to the new home of sport and entertainment with the Community Open Day on the 21st of January 2018, and has since produced numerous world-class events and memorable experiences that Perth will never forget. The state-of-the-art facility has already held over 300 events in Perth and welcomed more than 1.9 million people through the gates!
Major Events
After the stadium’s first opening event which attracted 53,781 fans to the final Gillette One-Day International, Perth’s newest attraction has been flooded with crowds following the announcements of major sporting and entertainment events.
The arrival of Ed Sheeran saw the 60,000 seat stadium fill up with fans who enjoyed the first ever music concert event at the venue. After incredible demand, the UK singer even released a second Perth show which brought a total of 120,979 fans across the two shows.
Ten-time Grammy winner, Taylor Swift was another headliner hot in the books, kicking off her Australian and New Zealand ‘reputation’ stadium tour at Optus Stadium. Being supported by well-known artists Broods and Charli XCX, Swift gave an extravagant performance in front of 48,405 fans.
The AFL season saw just shy of 1.2 million fans that visited Optus Stadium during the 2018 AFL season, with the venue achieving a Western Australia sporting record attendance of 59,608 for the West Coast Eagles vs. Melbourne Demons AFL Preliminary Final in September. This sell-out crowd was the highest attended sporting event in WA to date!
Other sporting event highlights this year included the Chelsea vs. Perth Glory exhibition (55,522 patrons), Australia v India Test Match cricket (81,104 across the four days), NRL double header (34,829), Australia vs England One-Day International cricket (53,781), and the Big Bash League cricket semi-final (51,037).
Milestones
In just one year Optus Stadium has smashed many milestones both locally and internationally. Only five months after officially opening Optus Stadium greeted its one millionth visitor, with its one millionth football fan coming through shortly after- making it the first time ever an AFL crowds has hit one million in a single year in WA.
The leading Perth events venue was also host to an Australian Football League Women’s match which brought a record attendance of 41,900 people; the highest attendance for any AFLW game and stand-alone sporting event in Australia.
In November, Optus Stadium was also crowned the’ Project of the Year’ at The Stadium Business Awards in London, beating out many international projects including Kuala Lumpur Sports City and Louis Armstrong Arena in New York. The international award marks the stadium’s 27th accolade this year having previous recognition of excellence in tourism, architecture, catering, landscaping, design, building and construction.
Optus Stadium’s Fans First approach has resulted in outstanding customer satisfaction during the first year of operation, with 92% overall satisfaction based on surveys of more than 6,500 customers across six events.
What’s next
There’s already a great list of exciting upcoming events to look forward to at the Perth stadium, with a number of world-class events already announced and facility improvements to be anticipated.
Football favourites, Manchester United are expected to bring their full squad over to Western Australian in July next year to head off against locals Perth Glory and rivals Leeds Football Club. The sporting superstars are expected to bring big crowds along with them having one of the world’s biggest fan base and social media followings.
Other exciting news includes the announcement of Eminem’s Rapture Tour which will bring the star to Perth for the very first time! His previous Australian tours in 2014 and 2011 resulted in countless sold-out stadium performances, so it will come to no surprise if the rap legend manages the same at Optus Stadium in February.
In terms of technology, while the Optus Stadium app already has a magnitude of features including Bluetooth seat finding, new improvements are expected to maximise user experiences. This includes express food ordering from a range of outlets inside the stadium (no more queuing at half-time or in the interval) and storing electronic tickets so you can enter with ease via your smartphone.
With all this and more exciting prospects for the stadium to come, we can’t wait to see what’s next to be added to the list of achievements!
