PRODUCTION COMPANY for Events at the Newcastle Entertainment Centre

The NEC has solid in-house infrastructure — power distribution, basic house lighting, and the rigging and staging framework to support a full show. For most concerts, sports entertainment, corporate events and large galas, clients bring in a specialist production company for the audio, lighting design, video and show-specific rigging. Forefront is one of the local production companies NEC staff refer clients to for that work

Trucks access the arena directly through two 4.3 m wide × 5.2 m high loading doors off Brown Road, Broadmeadow — Pantech-accessible straight onto the floor. The arena floor is rated to a 750 kg/m² UDL on a 45 kPa concrete slab, so you can hang and ground-stack serious weight without staging concerns. Our crew has many, many load-ins through that dock; we'll handle the run sheet end-to-end.

7,500 in concert configuration, up to 2,000 for a seated banquet, with 1,650 m² of clear floor space for exhibitions, expos and configurable layouts. We scale our audio, lighting and video packages to whichever configuration the show needs — front-of-house position included

ASM Global, in partnership with Venues NSW. Venues NSW is the state government body that operates the showground precinct; ASM Global is the global venue operator handling day-to-day venue management. (The venue was previously managed by AEG Ogden.)

No. There's no formal preferred-supplier or exclusivity arrangement between Forefront and the NEC. What we have is a long standing relationship — 27+ years of work on that floor, and a venue team that regularly refers clients to us when asked for a recommendation. We think that's worth more than a badge.

For a one-off corporate event or gala, 6–12 weeks of lead time is comfortable. For touring shows, the production conversation usually starts as soon as the date is on hold — we'll work with directly or your tour production manager from advance through to load-out. For very tight turnarounds, call us anyway — we're minutes away and we make things happen.

Yes. Our audio inventory runs Adamson CS line arrays, DiGiCo Quantum and SD desks, Shure Axient Digital and Sennheiser EW-DX wireless. Lighting runs grandMA control with Martin, Robe and Clay Paky moving fixtures on pre-rig or F34 truss with GIS D8+ motors. Pixapanel LED for video. If a rider asks for it and we don't carry it, we have national supplier relationships to fill the gap and integrate it cleanly.

Warners Bay, NSW — only 15 minutes by road from the NEC's Brown Road dock. Same side of Lake Macquarie, same Hunter region. Our warehouse, crew and replacement gear are all local.

All of the above. The NEC hosts arena concerts, touring sports, conferences, corporate events, brand activations, exhibitions, charity galas and community shows. We've delivered production across all of those formats — see the case studies above for examples ranging from PBR bull riding to the Westpac Rescue Helicopter Ball to the Brickman Awesome exhibition.