Brisbane’s Nissan Arena looks to the future

Having successfully negotiated a global pandemic, Brisbane’s Nissan Arena is focusing on its future as the venue having recently celebrated its fourth birthday.

Since opening in 2019, the multi-purpose Brisbane venue has proven its value as a key venue in South East Queensland through hosting major elite, pathways and community sporting events.

The home of Netball Queensland, the Queensland Firebirds and the Brisbane Bullets, Nissan Arena’s ability to host elite sport for competition and high-performance training is well-founded.

It was also one of the few venues in Australia to continually host elite competition during the COVID-19 pandemic, featuring over 50 matches including two grand finals for the 2020 and 2021 Suncorp Super Netball campaigns.

The venue’s versatility has also allowed it to host multiple boxing fights including the Gallen v Hodges ‘State of Origin’ Fight Night last year, high-profile bouts for Australian stars Justis Huni and Nikita Tszyu as well as world-famous exhibition basketball entertainers the Harlem Globetrotters and two of the Australian Boomers FIBA Asian Cup qualifiers in 2020.

Nissan Arena is also the home of many community events including pathway netball competitions such as the HART Sapphire Series and the Greater Brisbane Netball League, Volleyball Queensland’s Premier Volleyball League, school graduations, a range of sport carnivals and tournaments, and business events and seminars.

Across 2022 over 400,000 people attended events at Nissan Arena including 179,331 for community events.

Netball Queensland Chief Executive, Kate Davies advised “since its opening, Nissan Arena has become one of the premier sporting and community venues in Brisbane, and in 2022 we were among the most attended state-owned sporting venues in Queensland.

“Nissan Arena’s ability to host major and community events across a variety of disciplines highlights its value but this is just the start.

“A strategic initiative of Netball Queensland’s 2023-25 Strategic Plan is to identify commercial opportunities to improve our ability to invest in the game and expanding revenue streams from Nissan Arena is crucial to achieving this.

“We are eager to not only support our current hirers to grow their attendances and enhance the event experience but will be actively seeking to secure more national and international sporting events as well as expand into new markets such as concerts and entertainment where appropriate.”

Stadiums Queensland Chief Executive, Todd Harris said Nissan Arena had emerged as a vital piece of infrastructure in the organisation’s venue portfolio.

Harris noted “building this venue at QSAC was a strategic decision to provide a much-needed home for netball, in a multi-discipline environment that caters to community use, pathway development, high performance and competition, which allows athletes of all levels to be inspired by the best of the best in their field.

“The venue is in constant use, has proved its versatility with a range of different events and it has also strengthened QSAC’s status as a home for high performance sport.”

Bullets Chief Executive, Peter McLennan said Nissan Arena had proven itself to be a popular venue for the NBL team’s members and fans, adding “we just completed our third NBL season here at Nissan Arena and I’m pleased to say that it was our biggest one yet in terms of crowd attendance, achieving a 91% occupancy rate across our 14 home games which ranked second in the NBL this season, which is testament to what Nissan Arena delivers on all fronts from a fan experience perspective.

“Not only does Nissan Arena allow us to deliver a quality game day product, but it would also be one of the elite High Performance centres from a training perspective, certainly within the NBL”.

The Queensland Government invested $34 million in building the Queensland State Netball Centre, prior to the sale of its naming rights to become the Nissan Arena.

Images: HART Sapphire Series action at the Nissan Arena (top) and the venue's fourth birthday celebrations (middle and below).