One Building, One Brain: The Technology Behind NZICC

How operations, integration and pride shaped the technology behind NZICC

Two careers, one building

For both Ryan Göllner and Stephen Ward, the New Zealand International Convention Centre (NZICC) represents more than the delivery of a major venue. It marks a convergence point in two long careers shaped by live events, installed systems, and a shared belief that technology should ultimately serve people.

Appointed 18 months ago as NZICC’s Technology Services Manager, Ryan oversees production AV and ICT services, working closely with external partners including NW Group and visiting production companies to ensure the venue’s technology is reliable, scalable, and show-ready. His path to the role spans recording, live sound, broadcast, venue operations and AV integration, with experience in Las Vegas, Hollywood, Maui, Dunedin and Auckland.

“I worked at the old SkyCity Convention Centre, and just prior to this role, I was at VEGA. I am one of the few people in the country who has experience with the people installing all the systems and with the previous venue itself. It’s been a serendipitous journey.”

Ryan’s role sits within the venue’s operations team, but it is closely intertwined with VEGA’s ongoing involvement. Alongside delivering the full AV installation, VEGA is supporting NZICC through a long-term service level agreement, providing continuity between design intent, commissioning, and live operation.

VEGA’s Managing Director Stephen’s connection to the project stretches back even further than Ryan’s, “I have been involved with NZICC for the last four years. I feel like I’ve come full circle. I started out as a tech at the Aotea Centre in 1992 and now I’m back, part of the team delivering the largest single AV project in the country here in Auckland.”

That shared history, both with Auckland’s venues and with each other, has helped establish a level of trust that has carried through the project, “It makes a huge difference when you already understand how each other thinks,” Ryan says. “You’ve already got that shorthand, and you know the other person has the best interests of the venue in mind.”

One building, one brain

What Ryan and Stephen share is perspective. Both have worked on the integration side, and both understand what happens once the integrators step back and a venue has to live with the systems every day. That crossover between design, delivery, and operation has directly shaped how NZICC has been conceived technically.

Rather than treating AV, IT, control, and production as separate layers, the building has been designed as a single, connected environment, what Ryan and Stephen describe as “one building, one brain.”

Under the hood, NZICC uses New Zealand’s largest building-wide Crestron NVX AV-over-IP video network with over 320 endpoints, connected via fibre to Cisco Nexus switching, allowing video from any input to be routed anywhere in the venue. Audio is distributed and routed via a Q-SYS DSP backbone, with venue paging and show relay supported through the stage management and IPTV systems.

For Ryan, the operational benefit is immediacy: “If an event expands or a client adds another space at the last minute, you’re not hitting a technical wall. You’re just re-scoping how the system is used.”

With that backbone in place, the focus shifts from infrastructure to performance.

The plenary theatre

New Zealand’s largest seated theatre, with capacity for 2,850 people or 1,150 flat-floor for banquets, also offers the capability to be quickly reconfigured into two smaller multipurpose spaces seating 1,235 each, with fully discrete audio, control, and signal paths.

At the core of the audio design is the largest JBL VTX A Series theatre installation in the Asia-Pacific region, featuring the A8 line array system, Crown I-Tech amplification and Soundcraft Vi Series digital mixing consoles. The lightweight system supports fast changeovers through a simple, logical rigging design.

“I think sound people are going to be blown away. The audio is clear, consistent, and comfortable; you’re not struggling to hear, and you’re not being pushed,” shares Stephen.

Ryan expands, “You easily can change how the space functions from a control point of view. Rooms that might normally operate as conference spaces can be reassigned as green rooms, with camera feeds routed in so performers can see what’s happening on stage and know when they’re about to be called. That means you can run big stage shows from the theatre, alongside other smaller events.”

Exhibitions

Designed for high-turnover trade shows, large-scale builds, and simultaneous events, the exhibition halls at NZICC place an emphasis on power distribution, rigging capability, acoustic separation, and operational safety.

Each hall is equipped with a 400A power bus system, allowing high-capacity power to be dropped vertically from the technical grids anywhere within the space to suit changing exhibition layouts. This approach removes reliance on fixed floor outlets and allows exhibitors and production teams to scale infrastructure to match the build, rather than working around predefined limitations.

Overhead, rigging is handled via a Movecat i-motion motor control system, networked across the exhibition level. The system provides real-time visibility of total grid load as well as individual motor loads, displayed as weight or percentage of capacity. Built-in limits prevent overloading, with defined stop points at both the top and bottom of travel, supporting safe and repeatable rigging workflows, Ryan adds, “The Generation Xers are going to love it. The motor controller is just like an old school arcade game!”

Acoustic separation was also a key consideration, given the likelihood of multiple events running concurrently. Ryan points to acoustically sealed, carpeted catwalks and high-performance room dividers designed to minimise noise bleed between halls, allowing exhibitions, plenary sessions, and meetings to operate side by side without compromise.

Connectivity across the exhibition level has been designed for high-density usage, with venue-wide Wi-Fi engineered to support large attendee numbers alongside exhibitor requirements. From an operational standpoint, the exhibition halls reflect the same philosophy seen throughout the building: infrastructure that stays out of the way but is ready to scale when pushed.

Meeting rooms and accessibility

Supporting the larger theatres and exhibition spaces are more than 30 meeting and breakout rooms, designed for high turnover and consistent operation across a wide range of event types.

That consistency is reinforced through mobile smart lecterns and breakout racks that self-discover the floor box they are connected to, automatically presenting the correct audio and video to the room and updating the control interface with additional inputs. The lecterns provide integrated microphones, local source connectivity and foldback, while breakout racks extend the system for more complex events without reconfiguring the room infrastructure.

Accessibility has been built into the technical design rather than added as an afterthought, a nod to VEGA’s expertise in this area. Williams AV infrared hearing assist systems deliver clear, secure audio for individuals with hearing challenges, making them ideal for large venues like NZICC. Infrared technology ensures privacy by keeping signals contained within the room, while multiple channels allow simultaneous events without interference. These systems help venues meet accessibility standards and create an inclusive experience for all attendees.

The fun stuff for the creatives

Beyond the core AV systems, NZICC has been engineered with a level of production flexibility rarely seen in a convention centre, blurring the line between conference venue and performance space. Lighting is fully integrated into the wider control environment, with LED and dimming infrastructure designed to support both corporate and theatrical use cases.

The theatre staging infrastructure is equally adaptable. Large freight elevators connect directly to the stage, and with the help of a pneumatic lift system, the stage can be deployed within 45 minutes, while the full theatre floor and retractable seating take approximately two hours. The lower-level seating is fully retractable, converting the space rapidly between seated, banquet, and open-floor configurations.

Throughout the theatre and adjacent spaces, floor boxes wired with Cat6 and single- and multi-mode fibre provide multiple options for camera positions, broadcast workflows, and front-of-house mixing locations. An automated fly system, the only one of its kind in a New Zealand convention centre, features 15 configurable, programmable lines that can be queued and recalled, opening the door to repeatable, dynamic show moves over extended runs.

Lighting infrastructure has been designed with the same flexibility in mind. Power and DMX can be routed to every circuit on the catwalks, supported by truss travellers and moving power/data umbilicals that allow fixtures to be repositioned quickly in response to creative concepts. For Ryan, it’s a system that will reveal its full potential over time: “As crews get comfortable in the space, we are set up to support increasingly ambitious and technically complex productions.”

Non-negotiables achieved

For Ryan and Stephen, one principle sat above every brief and specification: pride was non-negotiable. At every stage of the project, the question was simple: is this good enough to stand behind? Not just technically sound, but something the people delivering it could genuinely be proud of. By that measure, NZICC has met its mark.

That pride has become personal. Many of the team talk about bringing family through the building, pointing out systems and spaces and saying, “This is what I built,” or “This is where I work.”

That approach has now been recognised beyond New Zealand. NZICC and VEGA have been named finalists in the Smart Building category at the Inavation Awards, presented at Integrated Systems Europe in Barcelona, a nod to the way the venue’s technology integrates seamlessly as a single, operational whole. For a building already described as an unconventional convention centre, it may well be the first of many such milestones.