First Through the Door at One New Zealand Stadium

Once in a Lifetime: the first major concert at Christchurch’s new stadium

On Saturday, 16 May 2026, Christchurch marked a symbolic rebirth 15 years in the making as 37,000 fans packed the city’s brand-new, $683 million, fully roofed One New Zealand Stadium at Te Kaha. The occasion was Once in a Lifetime, a five-and-a-half-hour all-Kiwi concert co-headlined by SIX60 and SYNTHONY.

For the crowd, it was an emotional, high-octane celebration of local talent on one of the largest stage and screen setups ever assembled in New Zealand. For the crew, it was a high-stakes trial of an unproven architectural giant, led by Global Production Partners’ Show Producer Jason Steel and Production Director Leon Dalton.

First Through the Door: The Brief

Jason describes GPP’s appointment as the result of both relationships and previous first-venue experience, having been involved with the opening of Eden Park. “The brief was about as big as it gets in NZ: a genuine once-in-a-lifetime event with the production to match, on a New Zealand budget of course.”

The structural brief centred on managing two of the country’s most formidable musical forces at once. Instead of a conventional support-and-headliner format, GPP treated SIX60 and SYNTHONY as equal headliners. “The entire production was built specifically for this show rather than adapted from an existing SIX60 or SYNTHONY package. We spent a lot of time designing the whole show as one continuous piece, a single arc across the night rather than separate sets bolted together.”

Guest artists were woven throughout the show’s narrative. Country sensation Kaylee Bell and rapper Savage were integrated directly into the SYNTHONY set, while Shaan Singh of Drax Project joined SIX60.

Engineering Around a Stadium

“At this stage we were unable to hang anything from the roof steel,” continues Jason. “That’s a real design challenge, because one of my pet hates in a stadium is seeing all the steelwork sitting on the ground and ending up with a low trim height in a room that’s meant to feel enormous.”

Compounding the issue was a strict mandate from the promoters and venue to protect sightlines and eliminate ‘seat kills’. Every available seat needed to be open to maximise the capacity crowd. “So we couldn’t just throw towers up everywhere.”

To maximise height without blocking sightlines, GPP partnered with Christchurch staging specialists SLAB on a bespoke cantilever structure built around a 46m by 9m LED screen spanning the back of the stage. “That one decision drove everything else. We used the back half of the concrete pad as our counterbalance and cantilevered nine metres out from the screen so we could hang the PA.”

Rather than adding separate IMAG screens to either side of the stage, camera feeds were integrated directly into the main screen canvas alongside show content. The stadium’s perimeter ribbon LED was also tied into the look. “I wanted the whole bowl to feel like part of the show, not just the stage.”

The Turf and Truck Dilemma

In order to maximise the use of the existing venue design, GPP built an extended loading dock from the back of stage through the roller door, “We built a ramp out of decking and created our own bespoke dock in the car park so we could line six trucks up at once.

Little things like that make a big difference.”

Once inside, the most unyielding master of the production schedule was the grass pitch. Because half of the stadium’s permanent roof is opaque, four massive, mobile grow lights must constantly shift down the field on a strict schedule to keep the turf healthy. “That meant we couldn’t just build whenever we wanted. We had to install our production elements around that schedule, making sure the grass got enough time back under the grow lights right through the build. The turf effectively dictated the order and timing of how the whole show went in. I’ve definitely learned a lot about grass.”

The grow lights also completely upended overnight lighting programming. “I only had one overnight session without the grow lights on. It’s hilarious looking back at how bright they are when trying to program lighting in the middle of the night. It was basically daylight in there.”

The B-Stage Transformation

While the massive 46-metre LED wall solved the visual scale of the stadium, it created an intimidating operational puzzle: how do you seamlessly transition from SIX60’s energetic rock setup to a full, 60-piece orchestra mid-show without killing the vibe?

The solution was an elegant misdirection. SIX60 migrated to the B-stage to perform a three-song acoustic set, and while the 37,000-strong crowd pivoted 180 degrees to watch the intimate performance, an army of stagehands transformed the main stage behind them.

As the acoustic set wrapped, GPP executed the ultimate handoff. A solo violinist from the Christchurch Symphony Orchestra stood on the B-stage, picking up the musical thread from the band and playing a soaring intro that led directly into SYNTHONY’s opening anthem, ‘Right Here, Right Now’, back on the main stage. In the span of just three songs, the main stage had been entirely stripped of SIX60’s custom step set, and a 60-piece orchestra was in position.

A Nod to Christchurch

The connectivity or ‘single arc’ that Jason refers to was also reinforced by a visual narrative that encompassed a deep, respectful integration of local heritage. “We used the screens between acts to show a curated nighttime scene of Christchurch, with the artists’ names appearing inside the streetlights. It was a small touch, but it was all about giving the city the pride it truly deserves.”

The same principle sat behind the opening of the headliner slot. GPP curated a pre-record in the empty stadium involving orchestra players and members of Ngāi Tahu iwi. “We really wanted to start the headliner slot with a blessing and do it in a special way that really complemented the night.”

That civic pride peaked during SIX60’s B-stage acoustic set, where GPP recreated the Cathedral’s rose stained-glass window as a stage decal. With no pre-earthquake high-resolution image available, local restoration specialists Stewart Stained Glass rebuilt the design from photos of individual restored pieces, creating the blueprint used to print the window directly onto the stage.

This profound attention to local heritage was echoed on the massive screens. While SIX60 played under the glow of the restored rose window decal, the video content featured stylised representations of the dry braided riverbeds running through the Canterbury mountains and the distinct aurora skies visible from Christchurch.

To further anchor the hometown energy, a local Christchurch snare line group marched out to join SIX60 for a massive performance of ‘Never Fade Away’ to close their set, transforming the evening into a true, shared victory lap for the people of Christchurch.

The 47-Day Render Race

The timeline was remarkably compressed. GPP received official confirmation for the 16 May concert on 29 March, leaving 47 days to deliver the production design and build a visual identity from scratch. With GPP also handling content, lighting and laser design for both headliners, the workload was intense. “The most technically complex part was the content. Once everything was signed off, we had an extremely short timeline to create close to 50 songs’ worth of bespoke video. With the high resolution of the screen, the tight timeline and the quality we wanted to produce for the show, this really pushed deadlines. We worked it out to be two songs a day that we had to render out. But we had a great team of content creators that pulled some very long hours to get it across the line.”

The Verdict: How Did Te Kaha Hold Up?

Despite pre-concert anxiety within the industry regarding how Te Kaha’s massive permanent roof structure would handle low-frequency bass and reflections, the venue passed its first major test with flying colours. “I think it’s a really intimate stadium. It’s got a great capacity, but everything feels very close. Acoustics were absolutely fine from our perspective, with renowned international sound engineer Bjarne Hemmingsen brought on to do the full acoustic design for us.”

For Christchurch, Once in a Lifetime proved One New Zealand Stadium at Te Kaha can host world-class, stadium-scale live music. For GPP and the local crews, it was a triumphant masterclass in solving problems on the fly. “Everyone in Christchurch was lovely. All the providers had a huge sense of pride and really wanted to get behind the venue. Everyone came to the party and made the event really, really stand out.”

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Production Kit By The Numbers

• Staging: 1,000 square metres of stage decking engineered by SLAB.
• Lighting Fixtures: 450+ units, including Ayrton Perseo, ACME PIXEL LINEs, Claypaky K20s, GLP X4 20 Bars, and Robe Forte XLT.
• Follow-Me System: Full ground-control Track-It system for precise artist tracking.
• Media Servers: d3/disguise gx3 machines driving the massive visual array.
• Lasers: 18 lasers integrated across the rig. Controlled by Pangolin Beyond.
• Logistics: 16 trucks of gear plus four shipping containers handled via a custom dock setup.

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Show Credits

• Show producer – Jason Steel Production manager – Leon Dalton
• GPP Production team – Stacey Henderson, Andy Hollingsworth, Sam Cudd
• Stage Management – Owen Drew & Khayt Hanara Audio – Bjarne Hemmingsen & College Hill
• Lighting – Jason Steel, Andrew Naysmith, Scott Rowland & AC Lighting
• Content – Global Production Partners, Andrew Naysmith
• Additional Animators – Gate 1 Studios, Artificial Imagination, Plume Studios
• Video – Global Production Partners & Creative Technology Follow Me – Global Production Partners, Shaun Cattell Comms – Global Production Partners, Sam Oxford
• d3 Programmer – Ollie O’Neill
• Lasers – Global Production Partners, Joe Pearson & Luke Nolloth
• Automation – Phill Howat, Theatrical Solutions, Global Production Partners
• Cameras – Blair Nicholson, Cameron Betts, & Creative Technology
• Pyro – Firework Professionals Staging – SLAB
• Power – ETS
• Local Crew and riggers – Hangup Transport – PTS & Ontour
• Site Operations – Site Resources, Jaz Kapow, Tom Anderson
• Health & Safety – Tour Safety – Woody Kay