Tākina Wellington Convention and Exhibition Centre in Wellington opened its doors in June 2023. Photo: RNZ / Angus Dreaver
New documents reveal the two first major exhibitions at Tākina in Wellington have either failed to break even or reach their target visitor numbers.
The $180 million central city convention centre opened just over a year ago, with Wellington Mayor Tory Whanau saying after it was complete that the building would be "the first step in the rebirth of Wellington".
But documents released under the Local Government Official Information Act show the Jurassic World by Brickman exhibition and the Marvel: Earth's Mightiest Exhibition failed to meet targets.
The Jurassic World by Brickman exhibition ran from 3 June to 16 October 2023 and featured a range of dinosaurs from the Jurassic Park film series made of Lego.
The documents state that the exhibition had an attendee target of 144,000 but it only attracted 92,109.
Wellington City Council said that the exhibit did make a profit.
The event was followed by the Marvel: Earth's Mightiest Exhibition which ran between 14 December 2023 to 28 April 2024 and featured installation and artefacts from Marvel's comic books and films.
Wellington City Council said the superhero event made a loss and had a target attendee number of 175,000.
The council refused to say the number of people who actually attended this event due to commercial sensitivities but stated "tens of thousands of people" went through its doors.
Owner of Trinity Group Jeremy Smith told RNZ he had been supportive of Tākina but said their business which owns hotels and bars in the city had not reaped gains from the exhibitions.
"I haven't seen any real benefit coming from those exhibitions."
Smith said it was an asset for the city, but there needed to be an examination on how it ran.
"We need to have a look and see how we collaborate more with the people marketing and running the events with the city and very specifically the hospitality and accommodation sector."
He said many of the conferences at the centre are about 200 to 400 people in size.
"It's not a lot of additional people coming in to fill hotel beds and go out and have dinners."
Wellington Chamber of Commerce chief executive Simon Arcus told RNZ there needed to be questions answered around why revenue sought for the centre was not coming in.
"One is the business model, right? And that includes who's running it and how we're running it, and two are we making the long-term business connections, and relationships and partnerships that will really lead to the long-term sustainability of the organisation."
Arcus said there needed to be a close look at how the convention centre was run.
However, he said in the long term he was still positive about Tākina's future.
Wellington Mayor Tory Whanau blamed a drop in business-related travel, inflation and people spending less on non-essentials for its economic performance.
RNZ reported two weeks ago that the centre's revenue was lower than expected ($1.2m less than expected in its first nine months) and that the council is looking at changes to its operating model.