Sydney's $1.5 billion International Convention Centre was opened to the public by Premier Mike Baird on Sunday.
The steel-glass edifice stretches over three city blocks from Darling Harbour to Haymarket and includes a convention centre and an exhibition centre adjoining a 9000-seat theatre and Australia's largest stage.
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Sydney's new $1.5 billion convention centre
Made from over 15,000 tonnes of steel and boasting the biggest kitchen in the southern hemisphere, the new International Convention Centre is impressive.
"The mega space will employ 300 full-time staff and 1500 casual workers and is expected to pump at least $5 billion into the NSW economy over the next 25 years," Mr Baird said.
"The convention building has 2400 tonnes of steel, and the exhibition halls have the equivalent of six football fields of trade show floor space," Infrastructure Minister Andrew Constance said.
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The first test of the facilities is on Wednesday at a Keith Urban and Carrie Underwood concert.
The government says it has already secured 500 major events for the space over the next decade and it forecasts they will draw hundreds of thousands of visitors to Sydney each year.Â
The facilities can concurrently host up to 30,000 people and three full conventions, an increasingly important source of tourism revenue. Â
The first will be an exhibition devoted to the Hunger Games movies on December 20.Â
The building is at the centre of a $3.4 billion redevelopment of Darling Harbour. Adjacent developments, including a 600-room five-star hotel and a residential and office precinct, Darling Square, are underway.
Lendlease had overseen all the redevelopments, which have not been without controversy.
Some prominent architects, including the original designer of much of Darling Harbour Philip Cox, condemned the demolition of the old, prize-winning Exhibition Centre to make way for the new mega-project which, critics say, has destroyed the scale of Darling Harbour.