CentrePort and Westpac Stadium, Wellington NZ

Wellington Regional Stadium (known commercially as Sky Stadium through naming rights) is a major sporting venue in

Wellington Wellington ( mi, Te Whanganui-a-Tara or ) is the capital city of New Zealand. It is located at the south-western tip of the North Island, between Cook Strait and the Remutaka Range. Wellington is the second-largest city in New Zealand by ...

New Zealand New Zealand ( mi, Aotearoa ) is an island country in the southwestern Pacific Ocean. It consists of two main landmasses—the North Island () and the South Island ()—and over 700 smaller islands. It is the sixth-largest island coun ...

. The stadium's bowl site size is . The stadium was built in 1999 by

Fletcher Construction The Fletcher Construction Company Limited is a New Zealand construction company and a subsidiary of Fletcher Building. Together with Higgins Contractors Ltd it makes up the Construction division of Fletcher Building. Fletcher Construction is wid ...

and is situated close to major transport facilities (such as

Wellington railway station Wellington railway station, or Wellington Central station, is the main railway station serving Wellington, New Zealand, and is the southern terminus of the North Island Main Trunk, Wairarapa Line and Johnsonville Line. The station opened ...

) north of the CBD. It was built on reclaimed railway land, which was surplus to requirements. The stadium also serves as a large-capacity venue for concerts and is known colloquially as "The Cake Tin".

History

The stadium was built in 1999 by

and was the first bowl stadium built in New Zealand. It was built to replace Athletic Park, which was no longer considered adequate for international events due to its location and state of disrepair. The stadium was also built to provide a larger-capacity venue for

One Day International A One Day International (ODI) is a form of limited overs cricket, played between two teams with international status, in which each team faces a fixed number of overs, currently 50, with the game lasting up to 9 hours. The Cricket World C ...

cricket matches, due to the

Basin Reserve The Basin Reserve (commonly known as "The Basin") is a cricket ground in Wellington, New Zealand. It has been used for Test matches, and is the main home ground for the Wellington Firebirds first-class team. The Basin Reserve is the only crick ...

ground losing such matches to larger stadiums in other parts of the country.

Naming rights

Westpac Trust, later known as just Westpac, signed on to be the naming sponsor for the stadium when it opened in 2000. Continuing that relationship for twenty years before it ended on 31 December 2019. On 22 August 2019, it was announced that Sky had signed a six-year agreement to take over as the naming sponsor of the stadium from 1 January 2020.

Tenants

The stadium is a multi-purpose facility, though used mainly for sporting events. It is the home of the Wellington Lions Mitre 10 Cup rugby team and the Hurricanes

Super Rugby Super Rugby is a men's professional rugby union club competition involving teams from Australia, Fiji, New Zealand, and the Pacific Islands. It previously included teams from Argentina, Japan, and South Africa. Building on various Southern Hem ...

team. The stadium also hosted the

Wellington Sevens The New Zealand Sevens is an annual rugby sevens tournament currently held at Waikato Stadium in Hamilton, New Zealand. For the first eighteen years of its history the event was held in Wellington. The event is the third on the World Rugby Seven ...

, one of the events that was part of the annual

World Rugby Sevens Series The World Rugby Men's Sevens Series is an annual series of international rugby sevens tournaments run by World Rugby featuring national sevens teams. Organised for the first time in the 1999–2000 season as the IRB World Sevens Series, the com ...

for national rugby sevens teams. Sky Stadium regularly serves as a home venue for

All Blacks The New Zealand national rugby union team, commonly known as the All Blacks ( mi, Ōpango), represents New Zealand in men's international rugby union, which is considered the country's national sport. The team won the Rugby World Cup in 1987, ...

rugby matches. Sky Stadium is also the home venue for

A-League A-League Men (known as the Isuzu UTE A-League for sponsorship reasons) is the highest-level professional men's soccer league in Australia and New Zealand. At the top of the Australian league system, it is the country's premier men's competiti ...

team

Wellington Phoenix FC Wellington Phoenix Football Club is a professional association football club based in Wellington, New Zealand. It competes in the Australian A-League, under licence from Football Federation Australia. Phoenix entered the competition in the ...

, the stadium often referred to as "The Ring of Fire" by Phoenix supporters. It also serves as a major home venue for the

New Zealand national football team The New Zealand men's national football team ( mi, Tīma hoka a-motu o Aotearoa) represents New Zealand in men's international football competitions. The team is governed by the governing body for football in New Zealand, New Zealand Football ...

(the All Whites), notably hosting the home leg of their

2010 FIFA World Cup , image = 2010 FIFA World Cup.svg , size = 200px , caption = ''Ke Nako. (Tswana and Sotho for "It's time") Celebrate Africa's Humanity'It's time. Celebrate Africa's Humanity'' (English)''Dis tyd. Vier Afrika se mensd ...

qualification match against Bahrain. During the summer the stadium generally hosts international and occasionally domestic

limited overs cricket Limited overs cricket, also known as one-day cricket or white ball cricket, is a version of the sport of cricket in which a match is generally completed in one day. There are a number of formats, including List A cricket (8-hour games), Twen ...

, with the home team being the New Zealand Black Caps for the international contests and

Wellington Firebirds The Wellington Firebirds are one of six New Zealand men's first-class cricket teams that make up New Zealand Cricket. It is based in Wellington. It competes in the Plunket Shield first class (4-day) competition, The Ford Trophy domestic one ...

for the domestic competition. The stadium has also been used for

rugby league Rugby league football, commonly known as just rugby league and sometimes football, footy, rugby or league, is a full-contact sport played by two teams of thirteen players on a rectangular field measuring 68 metres (75 yards) wide and 112 ...

matches, including national team fixtures and

New Zealand Warriors The New Zealand Warriors are a professional rugby league football club based in Auckland, New Zealand that competes in the National Rugby League (NRL) premiership and is the League's only team from outside Australia. They were formed in 1995 as ...

away fixtures. The

St Kilda Football Club The St Kilda Football Club, nicknamed the Saints, is a professional Australian rules football club based in Melbourne, Victoria. The club plays in the Australian Football League (AFL), the sport's premier league. The club's name originates ...

, an

Australian rules football Australian football, also called Australian rules football or Aussie rules, or more simply football or footy, is a contact sport played between two teams of 18 players on an oval field, often a modified cricket ground. Points are scored by k ...

club in the

Australian Football League The Australian Football League (AFL) is the only fully professional sports, professional competition of Australian rules football. Through the AFL Commission, the AFL also serves as the sport's governing body and is responsible for controlling ...

(AFL), played home games on

Anzac Day , image = Dawn service gnangarra 03.jpg , caption = Anzac Day Dawn Service at Kings Park, Western Australia, 25 April 2009, 94th anniversary. , observedby = Australia Christmas Island Cocos (Keeling) Islands Cook Islands Ne ...

at the venue from 2013-15. Off-field facilities built into the stadium also included the New Zealand Institute of Sport, and a campus for the Wellington School of Cricket, run by the Wellington Cricket Association. Wellington Phoenix Women has confirmed they will play the majority of their home games at Sky Stadium for the 2022-23 A-League Women season, after their inaugural season was based in Wollongong, Australia due to the

COVID-19 pandemic in Australia The COVID-19 pandemic in Australia is part of the ongoing worldwide pandemic of the coronavirus disease 2019 () caused by severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (). The first confirmed case in Australia was identified on 25 January ...

Events

In 2000, the then-Westpac Stadium hosted the Edinburgh Military Tattoo. This was the first time the event was hosted outside Edinburgh, Scotland. They returned to Wellington to play at the stadium again in February 2016. In 2002, during an England versus Black Caps cricket match, director

Peter Jackson Sir Peter Robert Jackson (born 31 October 1961) is a New Zealand film director, screenwriter and producer. He is best known as the director, writer and producer of the ''Lord of the Rings'' trilogy (2001–2003) and the ''Hobbit'' trilogy ( ...

recorded 30,000 fans chanting in Black Speech for the sound of 10,000 chanting

Uruk-hai An Orc (or Ork) is a fictional humanoid monster like a goblin. Orcs were brought into modern usage by the fantasy writings of J. R. R. Tolkien, especially ''The Lord of the Rings''. In Tolkien's works, Orcs are a brutish, aggressive, ugly, a ...

during the Battle of Helm's Deep in the film '' The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers''. On 4 March 2006, WWE's first New Zealand show,

WWE SmackDown Road to WrestleMania 22 Tour WWE (formerly World Wrestling Federation and World Wrestling Entertainment), an American professional wrestling promotion based in Stamford, Connecticut, in the United States owned by the McMahon family, has been promoting events in New Zealand ...

, was held at the stadium. 23,875 people attended the televised event. There were nine matches, including a triple threat match between

Kurt Angle Kurt Steven Angle (born December 9, 1968) is an American retired professional wrestler, Olympic gold medalist in American freestyle wrestling, and former collegiate wrestler. He is best known for his tenures in WWE and Total Nonstop Action ...

The Undertaker Mark William Calaway (born March 24, 1965), better known by the ring name The Undertaker, is an American retired professional wrestler. Widely regarded as one of the greatest professional wrestlers of all time, Calaway spent the vast majorit ...

, and

Mark Henry Mark Jerrold Henry (born June 12, 1971) is an American former powerlifter, Olympic weightlifter, strongman, and professional wrestler currently signed to All Elite Wrestling (AEW) as a commentator/analyst, coach, and talent scout. He is b ...

for the

World Heavyweight Championship (WWE) The World Heavyweight Championship was a professional wrestling world heavyweight championship owned by WWE. It was one of two top championships in WWE from 2002 to 2006 and from 2010 to 2013, complementing the WWE Championship, and one of thre ...

Also in 2006, a concert was held by

The Rolling Stones The Rolling Stones are an English rock band formed in London in 1962. Active for six decades, they are one of the most popular and enduring bands of the rock era. In the early 1960s, the Rolling Stones pioneered the gritty, rhythmically dr ...

, which ended the Australasian leg of its

A Bigger Bang World Tour A Bigger Bang was a worldwide concert tour by the Rolling Stones which took place between August 2005 and August 2007, in support of their album ''A Bigger Bang''. At the time, it was the highest grossing tour of all time, earning $558,255,524 ...

, On 14 October 2007,

Australia Australia, officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a sovereign country comprising the mainland of the Australian continent, the island of Tasmania, and numerous smaller islands. With an area of , Australia is the largest country by ...

defeated

in the Centenary Test

game. The 58–0 defeat set a new record for the largest loss by the New Zealand national rugby league team. On 1 December 2007, the stadium hosted an exhibition match between Wellington Phoenix FC and

Los Angeles Galaxy LA Galaxy, also known as the Los Angeles Galaxy, are an American professional soccer club based in the Los Angeles metropolitan area. The Galaxy competes in Major League Soccer (MLS), as a member of the Western Conference. The club began pla ...

. LA Galaxy won 4–1 in front of 31,853 spectators, the largest crowd for non-national

football (soccer) Association football, more commonly known as football or soccer, is a team sport played between two teams of 11 players who primarily use their feet to propel the ball around a rectangular field called a pitch. The objective of the game is ...

match in New Zealand history. On 17 January 2008, the stadium hosted the kickoff show of the Oceania leg of

The Police Reunion Tour The Reunion Tour was a 2007–2008 worldwide concert tour by The Police, marking the 30th anniversary of their beginnings. At its conclusion, the tour became the third (now sixteenth) highest-grossing tour of all time, with revenues reaching o ...

and over Easter the inaugural two-day " Rock2Wgtn" music festival, headlined by

Kiss A kiss is the touch or pressing of one's lips against another person or an object. Cultural connotations of kissing vary widely. Depending on the culture and context, a kiss can express sentiments of love, passion, romance, sexual attraction, ...

and

Ozzy Osbourne John Michael "Ozzy" Osbourne (born 3 December 1948) is an English singer, songwriter, and television personality. He rose to prominence during the 1970s as the lead vocalist of the heavy metal band Black Sabbath, during which period he adop ...

. Attendance over the two days was around 50,000. New Zealand hosted the

2008 FIFA U-17 Women's World Cup The 2008 FIFA U-17 Women's World Cup is the first women's football U-17 World Cup in FIFA history. It was held in New Zealand from 28 October to 16 November 2008. It is the officially recognized world championship for women's under-17 national ...

. Six pool matches and two playoff matches were played at the then Westpac Stadium. Due to

FIFA FIFA (; stands for ''Fédération Internationale de Football Association'' (French), meaning International Association Football Federation ) is the international governing body of association football, beach football and futsal. It was found ...

rules disallowing host stadia to be named after non-FIFA sponsors, the stadium was officially known as "Wellington Stadium" during the event. The stadium hosted the national team's

qualifying match on 14 November 2009 against

Bahrain Bahrain ( ; ; ar, البحرين, al-Bahrayn, locally ), officially the Kingdom of Bahrain, ' is an island country in Western Asia. It is situated on the Persian Gulf, and comprises a small archipelago made up of 50 natural islands and a ...

. New Zealand won the match 1–0, with a record crowd at the time of 35,194 for a football match in New Zealand. On 28 January 2010,

AC/DC AC/DC (stylised as ACϟDC) are an Australian rock band formed in Sydney in 1973 by Scottish-born brothers Malcolm and Angus Young. Their music has been variously described as hard rock, blues rock, and heavy metal, but the band calls it ...

kicked off the Australasian leg of its Black Ice World Tour at the stadium. The concert quickly sold out so a second was scheduled for 30 January. The stadium was also a venue for

Bon Jovi Bon Jovi is an American rock band formed in 1983 in Sayreville, New Jersey. It consists of singer Jon Bon Jovi, keyboardist David Bryan, drummer Tico Torres, guitarist Phil X, and bassist Hugh McDonald. Original bassist Alec John such qu ...

's The Circle Tour in 2010. The stadium hosted eight games during the

2011 Rugby World Cup The 2011 Rugby World Cup was the seventh Rugby World Cup, a quadrennial international rugby union competition inaugurated in 1987. The International Rugby Board (IRB) selected New Zealand as the host country in preference to Japan and South ...

including two quarter-final matches. On 11 May 2013, the stadium and Wellington hosted its first

National Rugby League The National Rugby League (NRL) is an Australasian rugby league club competition which contains clubs from New South Wales, Queensland, Victoria, the Australian Capital Territory and New Zealand. The NRL formed in 1998 as a joint partnership ...

fixture since 2004 with the

Auckland Auckland (pronounced ) ( mi, Tāmaki Makaurau) is a large metropolitan city in the North Island of New Zealand. The most populous urban area in the country and the fifth largest city in Oceania, Auckland has an urban population of about I ...

-based

hosting the

Canterbury-Bankstown Bulldogs The Canterbury-Bankstown Bulldogs are an Australian professional rugby league football club based in Belmore, a suburb in the Canterbury-Bankstown region of Sydney. They compete in the NRL Telstra Premiership, as well as competitions facilit ...

at the stadium for 'The Capital Clash'. The Warriors wore their 'Capital Clash' jerseys which incorporated the black and gold colours of Wellington and a design based on a strip worn by Wellington

Rugby league Rugby league football, commonly known as just rugby league and sometimes football, footy, rugby or league, is a full-contact sport played by two teams of thirteen players on a rectangular field measuring 68 metres (75 yards) wide and 112 ...

teams in the 1970s. The Warriors lost the game late in the match in front of 28,096 fans. On 20 November 2013, the stadium hosted the second leg of the World Cup qualification inter-confederation play-off against Mexico, which resulted in

failing to qualify for the

2014 FIFA World Cup The 2014 FIFA World Cup was the 20th FIFA World Cup, the quadrennial world championship for list of men's national association football teams, men's national Association football, football teams organised by FIFA. It took place in Brazil from ...

. On 15 November 2014, the stadium hosted the 2014 Rugby League Four Nations Final. It was the first Four Nations Final held in New Zealand, though the Mount Smart Stadium in

hosted the inaugural final of the tournament, then known as the Tri-Nations, in

1999 File:1999 Events Collage.png, From left, clockwise: The funeral procession of King Hussein of Jordan in Amman; the 1999 İzmit earthquake kills over 17,000 people in Turkey; the Columbine High School massacre, one of the first major school shoot ...

. The stadium was one of the venues for

2015 Cricket World Cup The 2015 ICC Cricket World Cup was the 11th Cricket World Cup, a quadrennial One Day International (ODI) cricket tournament contested by men's national teams and organised by the International Cricket Council (ICC). It was jointly hosted by A ...

which was co-hosted by New Zealand and Australia. It hosted a total of four matches during the World Cup which included a quarter-final clash between the hosts

and

West Indies The West Indies is a subregion of North America, surrounded by the North Atlantic Ocean and the Caribbean Sea that includes 13 independent island countries and 18 dependencies and other territories in three major archipelagos: the Greate ...

Guns N' Roses Guns N' Roses is an American hard rock band from Los Angeles, California, formed in 1985. When they signed to Geffen Records in 1986, the band comprised vocalist Axl Rose, lead guitarist Slash, rhythm guitarist Izzy Stradlin, bassist Duff ...

performed at the stadium during their Not In This Lifetime...Tour on February 2, 2017. On 11 November 2017, the stadium hosted its third World Cup qualification inter-confederation play-off with the

drawing 0–0 against Peru in front of a new record crowd for a football match in New Zealand of 37,034 fans thanks to extra seating install in the stadium for the match. On 2 March 2019, the stadium drew its largest crowd to date with an attendance record of 46,474 for

Eminem Marshall Bruce Mathers III (born October 17, 1972), known professionally as Eminem (; often stylized as EMINƎM), is an American rapper and record producer. He is credited with popularizing Hip hop music, hip hop in Middle America (United Sta ...

's Rapture 2019 concert. On 5 February 2020, Queen + Adam Lambert performed at the stadium during their Rhapsody Tour. On 8 December 2022,

will perform at the stadium during their 2020 Tour, followed up by the

Foo Fighters Foo Fighters are an American rock band formed in Seattle in 1994. Foo Fighters was initially formed as a one-man project by former Nirvana drummer Dave Grohl. Following the success of the eponymous debut album, Grohl (lead vocals, guitar) ...

a week later on the 15 December. The stadium will host several matches for the

2023 FIFA Women's World Cup The 2023 FIFA Women's World Cup is scheduled to be the ninth edition of the FIFA Women's World Cup competition, the quadrennial international women's football championship contested by the women's national association football teams organised ...

Major tournaments

''Reference:'' ''Reference:''

Rugby League Test Matches

Since its opening in 2000, Wellington Regional Stadium has hosted six

rugby league internationals. The results were as follows;.

Gallery

File:WWE Road to WrestleMania 22 Tour setup.jpg, The setup of the stadium before the WWE Road to WrestleMania 22 event on 4 March 2006. File:Westpac Stadium Cricket luving Crowd.jpg, An ODI cricket match between

and

in 2009 National Bank series File:Westpac Stadium Crowd.jpg, Crowd at a Tri-Nations rugby union match File:Rock2Wgtn 2008.JPG, Rock2Wgtn Easter weekend 2008 File:WestpacStadiumWellington2011RWChaba.jpeg, The stadium during the pool match between New Zealand and Canada at the 2011 Rugby World Cup File:Westpacnight.jpg, The stadium at night during an ODI match between New Zealand and

England England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Wales to its west and Scotland to its north. The Irish Sea lies northwest and the Celtic Sea to the southwest. It is separated from continental Europe ...

File:NZ Army Band performance at Westpac Stadium - Flickr - NZ Defence Force (2).jpg, NZ Army Band performance at Wellington Regional Stadium File:End of the concert, Westpac Stadium.jpg, The end of The Police concert on 17 January 2008

References

External links

*
Cricinfo Wellington Regional Stadium page
* {{Authority control Sports venues in Wellington City Rugby union stadiums in New Zealand Association football venues in New Zealand Cricket grounds in New Zealand Music venues in New Zealand Rugby league stadiums in New Zealand Wellington Phoenix FC Wellington Rugby Football Union Music venues completed in 1999 Sports venues completed in 1999 Hurricanes (rugby union) A-League Men stadiums A-League Women stadiums Defunct Australian Football League grounds 1990s architecture in New Zealand 1999 establishments in New Zealand 2015 Cricket World Cup stadiums World Rugby Sevens Series venues 2023 FIFA Women's World Cup stadiums