WHEN Scott Fitzgerald was appointed the general manager of Marvel Stadium in 2023, he focused not on what the Docklands venue wasn't but what it was. And what it could be next. 

Marvel Stadium's history started off rocky when it opened in 2000 as the country's first sports and entertainment centre with a roof. There were infamous turf troubles and AFL teams that didn't want to play at the venue.

The sentiment has shifted. The AFL completed its purchase of Marvel in 2016, nine years before it was due to be handed over to the League for a nominal $30 fee. But that $200 million investment was crucial to the game maintaining its economic health during COVID four years later.

Six years past COVID and Marvel is setting new goals, with Fitzgerald, who worked at Port Adelaide when it moved to Adelaide Oval and then St Kilda, one of five tenant clubs of the Docklands venue, focusing on an improved game-day experience and managing to become one of the world's go-to concert venues. 

"So often people talk about what Marvel isn't, whereas my perspective is on what Marvel is. My view of it all is Marvel is a fabulous multi-purpose entertainment platform that does a really great job of footy, it does an unbelievable job of non-AFL content and is now the pre-eminent entertainment stadia in the southern hemisphere," he said.

Marvel, which has more than 100 staff working for the AFL-owned stadium, has ambitions for more. Last year Fitzgerald was named in Billboard's top 25 global touring power players list and he and Marvel Stadium have been shortlisted for the 2026 Stadium Business awards for executive and venue of the year (alongside the likes of MetLife Stadium in New Jersey, Croke Park in Dublin and Co-op Live in Manchester).

In an interview with AFL.com.au, Fitzgerald shares how the AFL has used Marvel to lift its fan experience, how they have lured the biggest names on the planet to the venue and what's next. 

THE ENTERTAINMENT CAPITAL

LAST year it was giants Oasis, Lady Gaga and Metallica, as well as Mariah Carey at Fridayz Live. This year's series of concerts after the football season will include Harry Styles, who chose Marvel as one of only seven locations worldwide to play three shows, as well as Foo Fighters, Guns N' Roses and Robbie Williams.

But the run of Marvel's mega concerts will begin in Grand Final week, with Fitzgerald teasing a major event at the Stadium in the lead-up to the premiership decider. 

"We'll have a huge international artist here in Grand Final week. The artist has been here and has filmed themselves doing different things in the stadium, so they're right into the whole stadium piece," he said.

"It's going to be another huge event that's happening in Melbourne during the best week of the year, Grand Final week."

The concert will kick off 100 consecutive days for the venue of either setting up for an event, having the event or deconstructing an event over a jam-packed schedule that includes Big Bash League games with the Melbourne Renegades. 

Fitzgerald said luring artists to the venue has been a gradual build and the strong partnerships with the world's biggest promoters now sees artists and acts actively wanting to come to the venue, as opposed to having to push hard to attract them. 

"That says people are thinking of us about entertainment and global content and that is the way that people are now thinking of Marvel and celebrating it for what it is," he said.

"The shift in the perception that it's a place for people to come and be entertained is the thing we are most proud about." 

Coldplay became the most attended artist in the venue's history after its run of shows in 2024, but it was recently bettered by UK singer Ed Sheeran, whose three-show tour in February saw him jump above Coldplay for the "games record holder for attendances", as Fitzgerald puts it. 

Marvel is celebrating its returning artists with murals around the ground and Sheeran became aware of the new record when told about his artwork being painted, sparking some ribbing with Coldplay frontman Chris Martin.

"I said to him, 'Nobody has brought more people here on a music sense than you' and Ed looked at his mural and said, 'If you put that in the very bottom in brackets, just write 'More than Coldplay'. Take a photo and send it to me so I can send to Chris Martin," Fitzgerald said. 

"When you look out at a concert you see 65,000 people there for the one thing, creating moments and memories and things that will be with them forever. You get that a little bit in footy, but you're getting it 100 per cent of the time at concerts."

The stadium, in partnership with the AFL, has wanted to create better bonds with its industry as well through its events.

At one of Sheeran's three shows, there was the unique sight of senior coaches Chris Fagan, Chris Scott, Adem Yze, Brad Scott, Sam Mitchell and Michael Voss and their families all sitting within earshot of each other as guests of the AFL. 

GAME DAY EXPERIENCE

THE perception of Marvel through its early days was of a cold, wind-swept venue in an empty precinct. Although 4km from the MCG, it felt a mile away in terms of experience.

But Fitzgerald said Marvel wasn't looking to replicate what the MCG offers, but bring its own type of experience, complete with new restaurants including the Stoke Grill – a partnership with leading culinary business Stokehouse – Amphora and Friends of Fire and The Pulse, a Coca Cola-sponsored DJ room that has intentions of being footy's version of Flemington Racecourse's 'Birdcage' and attracting a new, younger audience.

"The question I get a lot is 'Are you in competition with the MCG?' and we're not. If you go to the 'G, you're going for a different type of experience that is big, steeped in history, rich in all those things. What we're doing here is being different," he said.

"We're 25 years young. We're focusing in on food and beverage as a real strength of ours. We have a good mixture of high street brands to the cheapest pies and chips in footy."

Marvel prides itself on its accessibility, with parents rooms, two sensory spaces and the technology enabling Telstra's Touch and Track program for vision-impaired attendees and follow the game. 

'WE WANT CLUBS TO FEEL AT HOME'

NORTH Melbourne, Fremantle, St Kilda, West Coast and Collingwood are among the clubs to have had training runs at Marvel Stadium this year, with the venue being more open than ever before to teams wanting to acclimatise to the venue ahead of matches. 

That move is born out of more confidence in their turf standing up to the rigours of games and training sessions, with the AFL's umpires using the ground as a training facility as well.

"We want clubs to feel at home here and clubs to talk positively about it. The recent history is unfortunately littered with a couple of stakeholders who haven't been particularly happy about coming here," Fitzgerald said. 

"We've gone from doing maybe three or four captain's runs last year and only a couple the year before that to having two captain's run sessions on the one day this year and we had four in a week recently already this season.

"The way in which the turf has been prepared and the way it's maintained gives us the ability to actually put more through it.

"The idea is that if you can get tenant clubs primarily and home clubs who are playing home games and bringing content here, then give them the opportunity to train on their home ground. They are the sorts of things that help the broader narrative around the more clubs are exposed to this, the more they like it here."

Changes have also come this season with the refining of the Marvel Stadium roof policy, which has seen the roof open on several occasions for twilight or night games. 

"It’s pretty simple.  If it's warm, it's not going to rain and it's after 4:30 (issues with sunlight and shading prevent an open roof during the day), the roof will be open," Fitzgerald said. "If it's not, then we won't open it."

ROOF CLIMBS, HOTELS, STANDING ROOM? 

SOON Marvel Stadium will relaunch its tour for fans, which will include being able to do a roof climb for the first time. 

Fitzgerald has other ideas on how to take things in a new direction.

"I love what GHMBA Stadium did in terms of ripping a heap of seats out and having a specific standing room and that's appealing to me. There's a whole heap of complexity in that but it’s an experience that I feel would work really well here," he said.

"The idea is for concepts that will diversify the levels of experience in our venue for our clubs' members and fans.

"We've looked at outdoor boxes. The biggest challenge for outdoor boxes is that they're outdoors, but we are always going to be dry here with the roof open or closed. Then there's the idea you could have lounge seating decks, party platforms and things in the seating bowl. 

"We've got a long, long list of things we want to do but it's about understanding what will work not just for football but across different content and entertainment platforms. They're the things we go after."

Outside the venue are redevelopment plans within Docklands to bring the area to life, including a hotel, after Marvel's most recent $225 million redevelopment was completed in 2024.

"We'd fill a hotel seven nights a week with conferences, events, and everything else. There's a ballroom that we would commercialise and run a lot of events and other content in the idea of what that actually means, what that sort of redevelopment means for the Docklands itself," he said.

"As a sign of further renewal and further growth in this space, I think it's huge."