Auckland 'a-buzz' with energy ahead of Coldplay concerts

Coldplay live in Singapore. Photo: GIN TAY / AFP

Coldplay are to perform the first of their three Auckland shows at Eden Park on Wednesday night, with 150,000 fans descending on the super city over the next few days.

Measures are in place to get commuters to and from the event, and police will be patrolling outside the stadium to keep concert-goers safe.

Excitement was building for the concerts, with fans looking forward to hearing their favourite songs live on stage as part of Coldplay's Music of the Spheres World Tour.

One concert-goer told RNZ the energy in town was electric.

"We went and saw them in Melbourne a couple of weeks ago, and when we were booking the tickets we crazily, spontaneously said 'let's go to New Zealand', so here we are.

"It feels like the city is all hyped up, right, and excited for it, and it's on the telly, and you've got things on the ground, so I think that Auckland's put on a show already."

Hotels were quickly reaching capacity, and Heart of the City chief executive Viv Beck said that was good news for business.

"We know that the hotel occupancy is high this week, which is exciting for the hotel sector. We're expected to be over 90 percent by Friday and a number of operators are telling us they're fully booked already.

"Overall, the accommodation sector is not back yet to pre-Covid levels, so this is a massive boost for them to have a week like this with high occupancy levels."

Beck said they had seen an increase of foot traffic in town, too.

"It's really exciting - events like these are sort of gold really, and the city's a-buzz, it's fantastic."

Auckland Transport's Rachel Kara said the bus and rail network was prepped to carry the load.

"Free travel on trains and buses to Eden Park's included in the concert ticket, starting at 3pm to end of service," she said.

"And we have over 90 extra buses on Wednesday and Friday, and over 100 extra buses on Saturday, in addition to trains running with extra capacity so that we can move customers where they need to get to."

She said there was also a fan walking trail from the city to Eden Park, as well as a cycling valet for those biking to the venue.

That was good news for Portland Public House in Kingsland, where manager Nick Arora said they were expecting busy nights this week.

"We are fully booked tonight, we are fully booked Friday, we are fully booked Saturday, plus we're expecting a huge walk-in crowd as well."

Arora said the influx of customers was a good thing to have.

"This has been a hard winter for hospitality in general, with weather not being that great, and now with weather getting better we're entering into more summer, I think things are looking more positive."

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