Heather du Plessis-Allan: Bring on more concerts at Eden Park

The submissions are open, you can now have your say on whether Eden Park should be allowed to have 12 concerts a year, which is double what they have at the moment.  And from me, it is absolutely a ‘hell yes’.Give them 12 concerts, it's a great place for a show. I've been to a few shows there now - Pink, Ed Sheeran, Billy Joel... and honestly, because of how good it was as a music venue, I struggle to imagine a time when Eden Park didn’t host music. It seemed so natural. But they only had their first concert, Six60, in 2021. In the interests of transparency, I have to say for a couple of those concerts, I was there because Eden Park invited me. And I'm not naïve, I suspect they invited me so I could see what a great venue it was. And it worked, because I was quite impressed with it. Obviously, Eden Park isn't the only venue Auckland City's got, there's a whole bunch of them - and if you want to have a big open-air stadium concert, there's Mt Smart. But I still reckon Eden Park beats it on a couple of fronts. For one, it's much easier to get to and from there than it is for Mt Smart. For a big show, Mt Smart is a pain in the butt to get in and out of. With Eden Park, you can just walk out and you're in a bar in Ponsonby in 2.5ks.Plus, there's capacity. Mt Smart can do about 40,000 people for a live show, Eden Park can apparently hold more than 50,000. Obviously, that means more money for Auckland city, which is what I'm interested in.The hotel occupancy for Pink was apparently 97 percent. That means people are bringing in their money from other places in the country and the region. There'll be even more money flowing in for Coldplay, cause they're only playing three shows in Auckland.So far, Eden Park is doing good things for Auckland's economy - and just to underscore the place, think of the biggest events Auckland's had over the past wee while. We had Harry Styles, we had Pink, we had the FIFA Women's World Cup, and we're going to have Coldplay soon.  Three of those were - or will be - held at Eden Park. After Coldplay, what's on Auckland's calendar for cool things to do? Outside of stuff like the tennis and SailGP, there's nothing.So I'd argue we actually need Eden Park to have more concerts, cause it attracts the big stuff. And who would turn up the money that comes with it? Plus, if we say yes to these extra concerts, maybe in a few years we’ll struggle to remember a time when we limited them to only six a year. LISTEN ABOVESee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.