Town Hall’s early days recalled

Press, 5 March 1982, Page 23

Town Hall’s early days recalled

Running the Christchurch Town Hall in the “early days” was “management by crisis,” savs Mr Patrick Connell.

“It was literally that. I would work all night, go home and have breakfast and come back to deal with another set of disasters,” he said.

Looking back on 10 years as manager of the Town Hall, he can now say happily that “we got it right in the end.” Having successfully tackled the job of making the city’s architectural wonder work, he will leave in about three weeks to take up the post of deputy general manager of the Adelaide Festival Centre.

Mr Connell, who was previously a public relations officer in New Plymouth, considered he was lucky to have been able to make his hobby, live entertainment, his work. He also praised the Christchurch civic authorities for having the foresight to build the Town Hall. .

“It is a fantastic building to work in. Somebody, somewhere had the immense vision to realise that this building had to be built," he said.

He viewed the Town Hall as a “very, very fortunate investment.” Its total cost was about $4.1 million, while the Town Hall being built in Wellington would cost $2l million and was still only half the size of the Christchurch facility.

Overseas the Christchurch Town Hall was regarded as an international venue of “considerable repute,” he said. In Australia it is always

seen as the “gem” of Australasia.

Nevertheless, Mr Connell felt now was the right time for him to leave. After a 10year struggle, the Town Hall had “come of age” and both the management and catering side of the complex were running well. Money was a perpetual problem. however. He doubted that the running costs of the complex would ever be met by its commercial revenue.

“It will always be a substantial burden on the ratepayers. Against that is how much it is being used — if it is averaging 600,000 -patrons a year it is bringing a lot of money to the city.” Mr Connell has definite ideas about the future development of the Town Hall. He has long advocated the benefits of entrepreneurial activity to the Town Hall Board to generate use of the facilities. “If a show in the auditorium grosses $30,000, the Town Hall gets $2500' We have to look at that,” he said. “You can’t just expect people to keep on paying higher charges — when we started

it cost $4OO or $5OO to hire the auditorium, now it is $2500.” He believes his successor will have to play a bigger role in encouraging Canterbury users, either by providing grants or offering attractive services. Another “huge, untapped market” was in the convention business. He would like to see proper funding and marketing to promote Christchurch as a convention centre. “There is nowhere else in ( New Zealand where these ' facilities exist. Wellington will take a slice of the market, but they will take time to establish themselves and we should get in while

we are ahead ” he said. “It is a way ol attracting foreign dollars and it is fairly easy business.” If Mr Connell ever writes his memoirs, he will have some startling tales to tell about his decade at the Town Hall — such as the time a “mad Australian” smashed 35 windows or the time the lights in the auditorium went out when the conductor raised his baton to start a New Zealand Symphony Orchestra performance. Yet there have been personal highlights as well. Among the most exciting, he places producing two Royal concerts — the first at 36 hours notice — in 1974 and 1977.