Melbourne Cricket Ground - Different Realms of Experience Economy - Case Study Example

Melbourne Cricket Ground A Site Visit Report Table of Contents Melbourne Cricket Ground 1 Table of Contents 1 Introduction 2 Experience economy 3 Quality management 6 Service design and analysis 8 Location and design 9 Conclusion 11 References 11 Introduction Located in Yarra Park, Melbourne, Victoria, Australia, MCG or Melbourne Cricket Ground is world's tenth largest stadium. MCG, which is the largest in Australia, is normally used for playing cricket and holds a record for highest light towers at a venue which is used for sporting activities. As part of our field trips we discovered some very interesting features of this stadium. Adjacent to the city center, MCG is served by the Jolimont Railway Station, East Melbourne and Richmond Railway Station, Richmond. On an international scene, MCG is popularly remembered for two events held at the stadium: Commonwealth Games of 2006 and Summer Olympics of 1956. Normally referred to as "The G" (Chappell, 2010), MCG has been a host to many more events of repute, which include FIFA World Cup qualifiers, International Rugby Union, and International Rules between Gaelic Athletic Association and Australian Football League (AFL). Major rock concerts of Australia are held here and the venue serves as Melbourne Marathon's finish line. Listed on the Victorian Heritage Register (Victorian Heritage Register, nd), during an event spectacular crowds gather at The G; the highest being 130,000 in 1959’s Billy Graham evangelistic crusade. In 1970, the stadium saw a crowd swelling to 121,696 people at VFL Grand Final. However, following occupational safety and health concerns, legislation limited total occupancy in the stadium to just 100,000. Given its popularity and the sheer magic its name invokes in Australians, we heard it being referred to as "Spiritual Home of Australian Sport". MCG, where it stands today, was a site chosen in 1853 by Melbourne Cricket club, which founded MCG in 1839. The ground at Yarra Park has an interesting history too. Until 1835 it was used by Aborigines. Colonial troopers' horses were put up here between 1835 and 1853; for these horses it served as an agistment area. Richmond Park was chosen for its strategic location since this area was free from inundation and at the same time had good level for playing cricket. Curious part of the history was MCG's grandstand that was built in 1854. It was made of wood; there was another which had a 6000 seating capacity but that was a temporary structure which was replaced by a stand made of bricks. The brick structure was, at that point of time, considered to be the best anywhere in the world. What added to its grace was that Prince Albert Victor and Prince George of Wales laid the foundation stone for the same in 1881. This was the year when the ground got its own telephone connection. A year later, a scoreboard was also erected that would give a vivid account of the matches’ progress. The stadium holds many records. Most important of these include 1877's first ever test cricket match between Australia and England, 1971's first ever one day international cricket match, and 1926's highest first class cricket score (1107) between NSW and Victoria. Apart from this, it also has many "world's first" records up its sleeve. These include world's first electronic sightscreens, World's first instant replays on all colour cricket scoreboards, world's first scrolling signage at an oval-shaped ground, world's first super sopper, and as mentioned above world's highest light towers. Experience economy Organisations particularly in the heritage sector rely a lot on experience economy. Even though there are no clear-cut definitions of experiences, the term is often used in conjunction with experience consumption, experience production and experience economy. Therefore when this term is used in connection with MCG, both inclusiveness and fuzziness encompass the same. Depending upon what is the context in which it is used; experience economy can be subjected to conceptual maneuvering. Each organisation practices experience economy with respect to the agendas it has on floor. Certain charitable organisations use experience economy for a number of reasons which could be anything from lobbying for support from the government for financial matters, trying for funds which can go into development and even for contesting plans which are developmental in nature. Despite all this possible side-impacts and despite the inflationary rhetoric and conceptual stringency, experience economy has been widely accepted and is likely to grow in the near future. Experience economy is relevant to MCG because the stadium provides experiences to thousands of people who visit it. Surprisingly though, it could be said that experience economy was existing long before the term was used for the first time (Pine & Gilmore 1999; Schulze 1992). Experience economy stems from experiences that a tourist or a visitor gets on visiting a place of interest, history or rich past. Experience economy is part tourism-related and it can be argued, as has been done by Nilsson (2007) and Sørensen (2007) that it existed long before the terms tourism itself was coined. In the recent years industries in the service sector, or organisations related to the same or providing experiences very much like it, have felt the need to bank on this term more than before. Bærenholdt & Sundbo (2007) have remarked that as culture, creativity and experiences grow as according to economic experience, experience economy attains greater and deeper meaning. MCG has been providing "input to experiences" for more than a century now and it has been successful in not only attracting the sportspersons but also business people, travelers, school classes and men and women from all walks of life. As an institution with a rich heritage and impeccable past, the ground has been continually working on innovation which has made it the darling of sporting and non-sporting world. It has provided experiences with changing times as history unfolded before it and wrapped up as the next chapter of history began. Given the perfection with which MCG has been handled all these years, it comes as no surprise that a London-based survey declared the stadium as one of the world's top sporting places. Based on the visitor experiences it is normally held that no other venue of this nature in the world matches the elegance of Yarra Park. This is also to do a lot with its location which is strategic in the sense that it is surrounded by numerous parklands and a public transport system which makes it without a stone's throw. In order to boost the experience economy further, MCG was redeveloped in 2006, a move that saw it in full operations thereafter. Public, corporates, Melbourne Cricket Club members, sponsors, caterers and advertisers alike have endorsed the experience economy moves by MCG. Dividends have paid off too in terms of the awards that have been conferred on MCG. Highest heritage honour of Australia went to MCG in 2005. It got this honour in recognition of its contribution to sports. A year later State Government’s Victorian Heritage Icon Award. This one was for its cultural contribution to cultural identity of Victoria. It is not only the attendance at the ground that can be said to have led to these recognitions and experience economy, it is also the participation and the engagement of people in whatever happens at MCG that has gone in the making of what MCG stands for today. Great efforts have gone into making MCG a place where they can see the spirit of sports sort of intertwine with lives of attendees. MCG lays special emphasis on how guests become part of several activities, sporting or otherwise, at precincts. The idea is to make them feel, see and smell the unknown and the unknown and ancient and modern at the venue. The MCG also houses a museum and organises guided tours to the venue. It is a controlled environment which is executed by flawless workmanship, team spirit and stability. Once inside the guest can engage himself in a wide range of activities which are conducted with empathy, seriousness and pioneering spirit; exactly as the same way sportsmanship is handled. The tours are a combination of enthusiasm and cohesiveness. The MCG, in its endeavour to make the venue a thriving place, even when there are not any major sports activities going on, attracts people from all walks of life. The local communities are more than enthusiastic to participate in the tours here; thereby creating an opportunity of association between the locals and the people working here, most of whom are locals only. It can be deemed that locals who throng the place do so because here they find an extension in their recreational space. In other words they feel a sense of ownership with the place. Not only that people who come from far and wide have also reported similar feelings about the venue. Needless to say that MCG has, over the years, become a part of many promotional campaigns which take place in Australia to promote its tourism, art, culture and heritage. MCG finds wide mention in different promotional activities that take place regionally, in tourism brochures and innumerable number of websites. The most dynamic feature of the ground is that its features are popularised by word of mouth publicity since it offers rich experience economy to its visitors. Quality management MCG is a marvelous stadium and gives its visitors an opportunity to tour the venue comprehensively to relive some of world's great sporting memories. The tours are managed very professionally and have been divided according to different features. These include The Ponsford Stand, MCC Members Reserve, City Terrace with Melbourne skyline views, MCG Tapestry, Long Room, Cricket viewing room, Players' change rooms, MCC Library, Cricket Victoria Bill Lawry Centre, A walk on the arena, and Media facilities. These are fully guided tours; each lasting around 75 minutes. Same holds true for National Sports Museum, which the stadium houses. This is sporting heritage of Australia housed at one place. Visitors are able to have a firsthand experience of Australian and world cricket, football, MCG itself and Olympics to name a few. A racing gallery known as Champions: Thoroughbred Racing Gallery has opened recently in 2010, its inauguration coincided with Spring Racing Carnival and world famous Melbourne Cup's 150th running. This gallery has been part of third phase of the museum, which was started in 2008. In all the museum displays amazing collections from the world of sports. Most beautiful of all displays includes oldest racing footage from Australia. The interactive touch to this display is felt when visitors are offered a choice to design their own racing colours. The champion racehorse, Carbine adds to its glorious past. Caribine was a rage from 1880s till 1890s. Part of the quality management of MCG reflects in the way its museum has been managed. The wide range of displays is complemented by the multimedia experiences. Jockey sleeves, heavily-hooped denote the greats of racing, who wore them riding Phar Lap. More than a dozen Melbourne Cup trophies of Bart Cummings' and riding boots and saddle worn by Roy Higgins' that guided the 1965 Melbourne Cup and similarly Damien Oliver's saddle which made history by the name of Japan triumph feature prominently here. That apart there is Ajax's horse shoe, Tom Corrigan's whip and Bill Collins binoculars and microphone adorning the museum (Mcg.org.au, nd). In order to make an organisation as one which is guided towards improved and consistent performance and thus lead it to ISO 9000 series certifications, there are eight quality management principles that have been predetermined. The first principle is customer focus, second is leadership, third is involvement of people, fourth is process approach, fifth is system approach to management, sixth is continual improvement, seventh is factual approach to decision-making and eighth is mutually beneficial supplier relationships (Iso.org, 2012). MCG has special emphasis on quality management because it is focused on outcome, improves upon best practices to set new benchmarks, is always on lookout for improvements on processes and systems, is focused on effectiveness, applies systems and processes organisation-wide and continually improves quality. It can be said that MCG is a total quality management organisation, meeting customer expectations every other day. Given its in-depth history and loads of experience gained for more than a century, MCG as on date has become a reliable, empathic and responsive organisation. Philip Crosby's idea of quality is that it is not comparative and there is nothing as high or low quality. He further goes on to argue that a product either conforms to certain specifications or it actually does not since it is an attribute instead of being a variable. Certain dimensions determine whether or not a product or a service is of quality. These dimensions include performance, safety, aesthetics, convenience, use of high technology, reliability and conformance to certain pre-established standards. Last but not least durability that it possesses. Furthermore the meaning of quality has two perspectives. One is producer's perspective and another consumer’s perspective. The former's view point of quality is quality of conformance and the latter's view point is quality of design. When both are combined the service or product must possess fitness for consumer use. Service design and analysis MCG strewn across 10 hectares of floors and the same have been constructed by using different systems which include precast Hollowcore planks, conventional formed concrete and composite steel slabs called Bondek. Since almost all floor would involve one or another type of service zone, all efforts have been made to maximise the servicing capacity. The greatest impediment in the maximisation was grandstand circumferential beams. In order to overcome this, haunches were used in these beams, which were 600m stepping down at mid-span and 900mm deep at columns. MCG caters to different types of services and it has used spaces in such a manner that each service is rendered without any hassles. Some of these services include ticketing, turnstiles, sports lighting and scoreboards. The site visit revealed that MacDonald's had to face a principal challenge because the company had to simultaneously carry on demolition, construction and yet maintain user facility services. A technical problem that could have occurred with Northern Stand lighting was its capacity to obstruct tower sports lighting that existed. This has been taken care of by additional sports lighting. This problem has been solved by the development of stadium's virtual model which was used to assess shadow and lighting effects of the new stand. Light simulation software was used to come to a solution. In order to study this in an in-depth manner designers and engineers assessed sports broadcasters and coders lighting requirements. Melbourne Cricket Club and builders were roped in to provide help in this regard since the whole exercise meant switching on light towers at night without creating and disturbance for the residents around the area. The interfaces between scoreboard, Northern Stand and Grand Southern Stand are glazed on both the sides. This has been done keeping in view that wind-driven rain might drench spectators. Another use that it provides is that since it makes it continuously enclosed it has the capacity to reduce wind loading on the roof. Since all the three regions were fraught with different deflections, interfaces and even glazing had to be well thought about. Connection details that have been thought of reflect the immaculate engineering sense of the builders. It is because while they allow seamless freedom of movement, there also negligible chances of interlocking taking place. The structures are so rigid that they promise structural integrity. Location and design As mentioned above MCG is an amalgamation of seamless architecture and engineering. With the recent redevelopment that has taken place, MCG is all new and transparent structure which has added another glory to its remarkable history. MCG is based on certain key design concept. These concepts have been of particular attention since they were incorporated after demolition of some old structures; a move considered as necessary by the designers and architects. The project was undertaken in stages and undertaken such that it did not negatively impact the operating facility at the venue. Each stage that was completed was soon to be commissioned as a functional facility which made the delivery of redeveloped structures all the more complex. What stands out elegantly is the Northern Stand's roof. It is because of its striking visibility. The architects wanted it to be transparent, elegant and as a mammoth structure that complements iconic status of MCG. Since one of the most important functions of the back-of-house facilities was to deliver standard for patrons and members that was world-class, special attention was paid to concessions, bars, club rooms and committee rooms, they were done with as much grace as any other portion in the stadium. While this was underway Great Southern Stand (GSS) was given equal attention and detailing. But in order to accomplish this, symmetry had to be established between the GSS and Northern Stand. Both were separated from each other by erecting huge scoreboards at two ends of the ground. With State Government's thrust on sustainability, other features incorporated in the precincts were those of sustainable nature. This was done to reduce energy demand and create means within the complex that would encourage sustainable use of products and energy. In order to meet the implication of such moves on engineering design, two companies worked as part of a joint team. One was Arup and another Connell Mott MacDonald. The result of this flawless association was a seamless structure which we see now. Structural design of the secondary and main roofs was undertaken by Arup. Apart from this it undertook engineering aspects of turf and pitch, ESD or environmental and sustainable design, which in included daylighting, building physics, use of photovoltaics, solar hot water, rainwater collection and environmental management plan. MacDonald undertook the task of looking into plumbing engineering design, electrical and mechanical designs, raker bowl steelwork and drafting (Carfrae et al, 2006). Conclusion MCG integrates different realms of experience economy since it creates a memorable experience. Through its guided tours, which are handled by experienced staff, it creates a sense of belonging in a visitor. Having more than a century's legacy behind it, MCG provides quality management in what it handles at the venue. Staff, amenities and services are par excellence. Everything moves about seamlessly since service forms the cornerstone of its functionality. References Bærenholdt, J. O. & Sundbo, J. (eds) (2007). Oplevelsesøkonomi: Produktion, forbrug, kultur. København: Samfundslitteratur. Carfrae, T, et al. (2006). Khalifa Stadium, Doha, Qatar. The Arup Journal, 41(2), pp 44-50. Chappell, I. (2010). Heroes wanted: Apply at the 'G". Available http://www.heraldsun.com.au/ipad/heroes-wanted-apply-at-the-g/story-fn6bn647-1225975914380. Accessed May 20, 2013. Iso.org. (2012). Quality management principles. Available http://www.iso.org/iso/qmp_2012.pdf. Accessed May 20, 2013. Mcg.org.au, (nd). Tours. Available http://www.nsm.org.au/Exhibitions/Champions%20Racing%20Gallery.aspx. Accessed May 20, 2013. Nilsson, P. Å. (2007). Turismens historie. In Sørensen, A. (ed.), Grundbog i turisme (pp. 43-53). København: Frydenlund. Pine, B. J. & Gilmore, J. H. (1999). The Experience Economy. Boston: Harvard Business School Press. Schulze, G. (1992). Die Erlebnis-Gesellschaft. Frankfurt: Campus. Sørensen, A. (2007). Hvad er turisme - og hvordan forstår vi den? In Sørensen, A. (ed.), Grundbog i turisme (pp. 29-42). København: Frydenlund. Victorian Heritage Register. (nd). Melbourne Cricket Ground. Available http://vhd.heritage.vic.gov.au/vhd/heritagevic#detail_places;1538. Accessed May 20, 2013. Read More