Christchurch's Isaac Theatre Royal is usually host to travelling musicians or moving dramatic productions, but this week squash is taking the centre stage, with a glass court installed for the New Zealand Squash Open.
The event, the Bridlewood Estate NZ Festival of Squash, is made up to the Barfoot and Thompson New Zealand Women's Squash Open, the Lucino New Zealand Men's Squash Open and the New Zealand Junior Open.
The tournament runs from 4 to 9 March.
Photo: RNZ / Nate McKinnon
World number four, and last year's New Zealand Men's Open winner, Paul Coll, said playing in the New Zealand Open in the town where he got his start playing squash, and at such an unique venue, will make for a very special event.
"It's honestly so cool. When I walked in I got goosebumps," Coll said. "I'm not just saying it because it is my home town, but its one of the best venues I've seen. The way it is tiered up, the way it looks. I think its going to be a wicked weekend."
The tournament director, Scott Gardiner, said when looking for a venue in Christchurch to hold the event, they decided the Isaac Theatre Royal would offer something special. He said this will be the first time a squash tournament will be played in a theatre in New Zealand.
"The great thing about a theatre is you have a lot of infrastructure already set up, so the seating, the lighting is a lot easier and of course the stage. You do have to do a lot of different things with a squash court, so we've had to load-balance the floor, and we obviously want to put up different lighting infrastructure to light the court, but a lot of the good infrastructure is already in place."
The glass court is owned by New Zealand Squash and is moved around as needed.
Photo: RNZ / Nate McKinnon
The Isaac Theatre Royal's technical manager, Jack Babington, said it was definitely a bit of a different event for the theatre.
"I mean it is unique, I've never done a sports game on stage here before. In some ways a gig is a gig for us. I've had three storey high steel structures which opera singers leap from every night, so we deal with some strange and complex things. So it is unique but just another day for us."
However, he said there were some complexities to work through.
"Our stage floor is limited in how much weight we can put on it. So to put the squash court on stage and have all the equipment that they need to build it we had to reinforce and install a sub-floor and sign it off by an engineer for us to have this in here."
Photo: RNZ / Nate McKinnon
The overall draw has 24 men and 24 women from 17 countries, including five of the world's top 20 in the men's event.
Coll said the large number of overseas players was a sign of how significant the tournament is.
"It's one of my most important tournaments, being a Kiwi playing at home. I always priorities the New Zealand Open. I think it shows by how many people have come from overseas that people are looking forward to coming and playing in the New Zealand open. It's great to see."
Tickets for the event are available via the Festival of Squash website. Matches will also be broadcast on Sky TV.
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