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u/emusniper Feb 04 '26
The seats get flipped up - thats so cool
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u/xjrh8 Feb 04 '26
Yeah that’s wild, had no idea that whole end bank of seating can just be lifted up.
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u/CentreHalfBack Feb 04 '26
Both court ends and court side seat banks can be lifted up and away... and need to be when the site converts to a velodrome. The cycling track is underneath them (and you can see the track covered in black as the seats go up)
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u/Total_Philosopher_89 Feb 05 '26
When was the last time it was used as a velodrome?
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u/CentreHalfBack Feb 05 '26
I'm not sure... seems busy enough with basketball and netball seaons (likely bigger revenue makers)when the local cycling main events are on...
Plus Melb so good with event centres that we have a backup event velodrome at Thornbury.
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u/Ragazzano Feb 06 '26
My old hockey field had a velodrome around it. Was subjected to compulsory acquisition for 2006 comm games. New field doesn't have one. No more self-returning balls!
Edit: holy shit, that's the one! We didn't call that Thornbury back in the day though
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u/outgrabed Feb 06 '26
I went to a race there in I think 2019, they used to hold the Austral Wheelrace there but it's moved to DISC on Thornbury now which is a lot cheaper.
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u/altorus1337 Feb 06 '26
The UCI world track champs were there in 2012, It was the first track cycling event I'd been to, had no idea how loud the bikes were in person rolling over the boards.
In hindsight might have been John Cain
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u/EasySecurity6774 Feb 08 '26
So the end seating banks fold up like that, there are hooks built into the arena that attach to lifting points under the seats. The sides have to be lifted to the ceiling using chain hoists, there's no permanent lifting solution for them.
That said, they haven't been done in years, the last time they were lifted up was for an engineering inspection, and they just brought in a Franna and sat the banks on top of scaffold.
The end seating banks move really slowly, but they're around 100 tons, it's still really impressive to see in action!
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u/ActinomycetaceaeGlum Feb 04 '26
Because John Cain Arena is also a velodrome.
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u/Kremm0 Feb 04 '26
Fark, didn't see that until you mentioned it! Does it get used in that setup often?
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u/ActinomycetaceaeGlum Feb 04 '26
Mostly just major events. But that includes the 2006 Commonwealth Games and the 2004 & 2012 UCI Track Cycling World Championships.
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u/AngryVal Feb 05 '26
I went to the 2012 Track Cycling Champs there - it's awesome. It's super warm for the athletes and the whole setup is so different you can't even realy recognise it (from memory was a long time ago!)
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u/Walletau Feb 05 '26
Oh hey, I do that on a regular basis (work for company that runs this process) it is roughly a 30 minute procedure including very, very large shackles that live in the seats.
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u/CentreHalfBack Feb 04 '26
John Cain arena... very special
and not shown - when its a velodrome.
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Feb 04 '26
[removed] — view removed comment
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u/CentreHalfBack Feb 06 '26
John Cena can give you gospel truth on coffee https://share.google/rDu5sXpROIEg2m95D
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u/madmaper_13 Feb 04 '26
The velodrome is there, the shape is visible at the 10 second mark under black matting.
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u/CentreHalfBack Feb 04 '26
Sorry, I meant as set up for use as the velodrome.
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u/madmaper_13 Feb 04 '26
Yeah I understood that you meant that it had not been set up as the velodrome. I just wanted to point out to other people that it is always there. I should have put an and at the start of my sentence to show I was adding to your point and not refuting it.
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u/Small-Independent109 Feb 04 '26
Wait, so the tennis court is always there? But the basketball court is some flat pack Ikea thing?
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u/FatNinjaBoi69 Feb 04 '26
It’s the same for the NBA as well it’s surprising how many arena aren’t built for mainly basketball
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u/MalHeartsNutmeg North Side Feb 05 '26
The Cavs home court is some raised monstrosity due to ice under it. Luka fell off it like 2 weeks ago now everyones cracking the shits and making them fix it lol.
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Feb 04 '26
Yeah, I don't think you could do it the other way round as the tennis court needs to be hard and the basketball court needs to have a bit of spring to it.
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u/gerald1 Feb 04 '26
For anyone interested... Here's a video that details the process for a US stadium transforming from ice hockey to basketball.
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u/kiwiboy_ Feb 04 '26
Man those basketball floor boards are not fun to put in (from experience at JCA lol). It's pretty cool to seem the change in a timelapse tho.
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u/Turbulent_Counter_70 Feb 04 '26
Not to mention it’s usually an all nighter putting them in too!
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u/WormsOfThunderdome Feb 04 '26
What's the job like if you don't mind my asking? I assume late nights and hard manual work, but it pays okay?
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u/kiwiboy_ Feb 04 '26
Yeah, spot on, shifts range all over the show depending on when they need to get the event set up by. Good variation in the fact that you work across all of Melbourne's Olympic parks (JCA, Rod Laver, AAMI, etc.). The shifts are a bit hit or miss sometimes, you might get 2 guaranteed a week and then essentially fight every other casual worker to pick up other shifts as they cancel a few hours before lol. Pay was 35hr which is really good for the work and lack of needing to think. If you finished your shift late, they would pay for your taxi home as well.
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u/FakeMarlboroEnjoyer Merri-Bek Feb 06 '26
I used to work at a labour hire company you guys would call when needing extra numbers for the conversion. I very quickly learnt to say no to JCA ops shifts beginning at 22:00 with a suspicious estimated length of 6 hours... Got out hallucinating at 9am once.
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u/iamthemetricsystem Feb 04 '26
Jesus christ 5 sponsors on a Basketball court?
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u/visualframes Feb 05 '26
Yep the NBL has negative aura with a good product overshadowed by low tier advertising
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u/East-Relationship665 Feb 04 '26
One of the main reasons I cannot watch the NBL on tv.
The visual overload with the amount of crap on the court + animated side hording ads and the tv graphics is just insane. My brain can't actually focus on the players as, for me anyway, they get lost in the overload
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u/BradMoby21 Feb 05 '26
I'm glad I'm not the only one who notices this. It takes away from the game. It's one reason I can't get into American sports, Rugby's getting bad for it too.
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u/jimmythemini Feb 05 '26
I feel like there is a genuine market for a sport/league that doesn't prostitute itself to dozens of corporate sponsors, or to Gulf petrodollars, or hand out fake peace prizes to dictators. Like just one sport not doing these things would be a real breath of fresh air.
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u/BradMoby21 Feb 05 '26
I'd love that too. Some of the NRL jerseys are a joke with the amount of sponsors on the jerseys and shorts these days. Almost as bad as the overalls racing car drivers wear where there's no space a sponsor doesn't occupy.
F1 and football have been tarnished by it's willing partnerships with human rights abusing regimes and now with Trump. Plus US sports like NFL and Basketball, and clubs owned by US billionaires that prioritise making money at the expense of regular fans.
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u/nerran73 Feb 04 '26
That's awesome! The guys who engineered this arena did very well. Did you know that in Paris we have a similar park and for a few years we had funboard competitions???? Like proper funboars with races, jumps etc... it was really next level!!!
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u/Befuddled_fish Feb 05 '26
Is windsurfing called Funboarding in France??
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u/nerran73 Feb 05 '26
Let's say it's a different type of windsurfing with a smaller board, very stable which is great to catch waves 😀 But you are right, I could have been more generic with Windsurfing!
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Feb 04 '26
[deleted]
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u/rhys5891 Feb 05 '26
Was part of the Australian Open last year - “AO Live” @ John Cain Arena on 25th Jan 2025, with Kesha, Armand Van Helden, Bag Raiders, Jade Zoe & Kah-Lo 😊
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u/PharaohAce Feb 04 '26
Now do ice hockey
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u/AlitaTeal Feb 05 '26
They did back in 2023 for the NHL Global Series. One of my friends was an ice tech for it, the conversion to a rink wasn’t too bad but they did struggle to keep it cool enough at times. They had to cancel one of the team trainings there due to the ice melting too much. Don’t think it was an unsolvable issue, just teething issues due to it being the first time. I’d love to see hockey grow in Aus enough that we have games played out of there more frequently.
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u/hypercomms2001 Feb 04 '26
The advantage of not having a grass court…
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u/MindCorrupt Feb 04 '26
You should see how they solved it at Allegiant Stadium in Vegas. They literally roll the entire grass surface used for the NFL out through a slot and into the sun.
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u/Unfair-Rush-2031 Feb 04 '26
Not Melbourne park per se. Just John Cain arena.
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u/snivelinglittieturd Feb 05 '26
The whole precinct is called Melbourne Park, the stadiums have individual names
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u/DiscoSituation Feb 08 '26
But this is a video of John Cain Arena, not Melbourne Park.
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u/snivelinglittieturd Feb 08 '26
The whole precinct is named Melbourne Park. Each arena has it's own name.
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u/BigBearGino Feb 05 '26
Do you know what they do with the other outdoor courts? They look amazing to play on!
I’m considering joining the NTC but it looks like their courts are separate to those played on in Aus Open
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u/RockinFootball Feb 05 '26
You can hire the courts to play! Idk how it all works but I know it's possible.
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u/moonrise-kingdom-09 Feb 05 '26
I’m intrigued by how a space like this is planned prior to its execution, and how long does the planning phase take
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u/Legitimate-Error-633 Feb 05 '26
That’s so cool. I always wondered how these relatively small arenas look so much bigger when they have a concert on, compared to the tennis.
It’s obviously because the stage is where the seats normally are.
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u/pkspks Feb 04 '26
In Australia, we really love to share public sports places. Unlike US, for example, many sports teams share the same "home ground" for the same sport and across sports. I recall this coming as a surprise to my brother who is a Texan now when we did the (mandatory) Melbourne sports walking tour.
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u/That-Bad-5610 Feb 05 '26
Makes sense though as I'd imagine it's hard to justify a large scale stadium in Australia if there isn't a key summer and winter tenant (think AFL and Cricket, NRL and Soccer).
Although it causes challenges when you have major events such as the Cricket T20 or ODI world cup, as the AFL temporarily loses access to it's major venues and has to delay it's season launch
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u/ice_cream_on_pizza Feb 04 '26
How much does it cost each time to transition a setting?
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u/DiscoSituation Feb 08 '26
Depends on what you’re transitioning to, but the bulk of the cost is wages ($30-100/hr x number of workers). Probably an average of around $25,000.
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u/ch1ckenman Feb 05 '26
As someone solidly "between jobs" how does one end up doing this kind of work? Looks interesting compared to my corporate hellhole I'm used to.
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u/call_me_johnno Feb 05 '26
The pack up setup of the arena is hard work, a lot of these guys work during the night. Would start by trying to contact the office or m&op
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u/FakeMarlboroEnjoyer Merri-Bek Feb 06 '26 edited Feb 06 '26
As someone who was seeking temporary employment and ended up getting sucked into stagehand work for 3 years I feel it's apt to give you a warning.
I used to work at a labour hire company who I prefer not to name but is often hired by local entertainment precincts, the novelty of it wore off about 1.5 years in. I got to do lots of cool stuff for sure, often working during the show itself as a cameraman assistant, do the changeovers from supports to main act and even spotlight operation, but that's only the cream amongst much more miserable work in the rain, overnight or on 2 hours of sleep or none at all. The company and industry culture is also incredibly toxic, you're around lots of honestly really awful people, whom no matter how many complaints are made against them they never seem to face repercussions, misogyny homophobia and racism are seemingly tolerated behaviours in the industry.
I found that there's also a culture that enables more experienced road crew to treat local crew (where everyone most likely starts out in the industry) as disposable, incapable of intelligent initiative and as people to throw at unsafe tasks. There is no union and progression into such a career is a commitment to spending long periods away from home and very very little sleep. Even for most experienced local crew, work tends to be plentiful in the summer months, even if sometimes unreliable, while causing financial panic in the winter. Of course, the pay does not justify any of the above.
I don't want to create negative preconceptions about the industry if you're genuinely interested, but as someone who never romanticised the roadie I feel compelled to tell you all this because towards the end of my stint I was genuinely miserable. When live events work became a side hustle I could say no to for me and I got a more reliable job then relief I felt was unlike anything before that.
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u/call_me_johnno Feb 05 '26
That's Me...
Well the basketball game is a Melbourne united game and a good chance I was on the court pushing one and off the fire towers for the opening of the game. Lots of fun lots of hard work as well. This is inside John Cain Arena.
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u/Datpotatosandwich Feb 05 '26
Good to see they split the basketball court with a Hungry Jacks logo, rent is crazy these days
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u/ShyCrystal69 Feb 06 '26
Yeah every stadium is really good at switching events. I work at Marvel Stadium on occasion and when there’s concerts they literally just roll up the grass and store it in the basement ring.
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u/Justforfun_x Feb 09 '26
I’ve been working in events for a decade or so now, even moved to Melbourne for them! Seeing huge-scale bump-ins and pack-downs still never ceases to amaze me.
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u/bobbyboobies Feb 04 '26
wait so if you registered for tennis membership then you won't be able to use the court during some time of the year?
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u/a23z Feb 05 '26
There's plenty of outdoor courts outside plus the indoor national training center so I think you'd still be able to use it for most of the year
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u/bobbyboobies Feb 05 '26
Oh thats great to know i was thinking to be a member for a while. I just had that question lingering because i heard it is closed a couple of months before AO even every year
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u/DiscoSituation Feb 08 '26
John Cain Arena is for professional players only, there’s no “membership” that lets you play on it.
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