Speaking to micenet last week at the 2026 Asia Pacific Incentives and Meetings Event (AIME) in Melbourne, Nyaal Banyul’s general manager Rick Aylett said interest in the venue was “really strong”.
“We have a range of different events, from conferences and exhibitions to gala dinners to live shows to community events.
“At the moment in our sales pipeline and booked events, 45 per cent are from interstate, and that can equate up to 38,000 attendees.
“And of the sales and the bookings in the pipeline at the moment, not only are 45 per cent from interstate, but 54 per cent of all of them are multi-day conferences and exhibitions.
“And of that, close to 56 per cent are three-day events,” he said.
Formerly the operations chief for Melbourne Convention and Exhibition Centre (MCEC), Aylett has been involved in the Geelong convention centre from its inception. He also retains the same employer – MCEC and Nyaal Banyul are both operated by the Victorian Convention and Event Trust.
“Nyaal Banyul will be transformational for the Australian business events scene and it’ll revitalise Geelong,” said Aylett.
“Part of our objective is the economic benefit, the job creation.”
About 75 per cent of the jobs filled so far at the centre have seen locals employed, he said, citing the involvement of the local community as a critical factor.
“We’ll have the job creation, the local ecosystem; our wine list is all from local wineries in the region, our menus are all developed and supplied by local providores.
“So, we’re really about creating a public asset, too. This building’s a public asset. The contribution that it will make to the community is significant,” he said.
Aylett believes it’s important for Nyaal Banyul to have its own identity.
“Of course, we’ll leverage our expertise, our experience and our relationships with the industry that have been developed through MCEC. And there’s some economies of scale, e.g. our back-end systems,” he said.
Nyaal Banul will open on July 1, 2026, and stage its first business event two days later.
Aylett indicates there will also be ticketed public events. No names yet, but he said two music acts are already booked and are expected to draw strong local support in Nyaal Banyul’s 1,000-seat plenary space.
The flat floor exhibition bays, which he refers to as event spaces, might suit larger music events targeted at younger audiences. However other venues, such as Geelong’s AFL stadium, might better suit “a group like Foo Fighters” Aylett said.
He believes the impact on Geelong and the Bellarine will be significant as delegates come to the region for a few days of conferencing, but end up staying a week with pre- or post-touring to places including the Great Ocean Road, the Bellarine wineries or artisan food producers.
“They will go to the conference for that two- or three-day or four- or five-day period. And then after that, they will either, at the front end or the back end of that conference, generally spend about three-and-a-half days in the region.
“And that’s the benefit of business events to the community, because it all goes through that local ecosystem,” said Aylett.
