A translucent, climate-controlled dome over Melbourne Park? Tiley’s radical plan to reshape the Australian Open

Tennis Australia boss Craig Tiley has forecast more innovations for the Australian Open including an interactive glass court for fans, an immersive dome with 270-degree screens, and an even greater emphasis on fashion, beauty and wellness.

Tiley, who again deflected questions about his future, was happy to elaborate on the future of the Open, and also predicted expanding the tournament into the Olympic and Yarra Park precincts to ease the congestion caused by record crowds at this year’s tournament.

In an interview with this masthead, Tiley said he was proposing a “translucent dome over the whole precinct”.

When asked how that would happen, Tiley said this was still being figured out.

“It exists in Dallas right now,” he said. “We want to climatise the whole thing because why should you buy a ticket for the day, and the heat stops you from having an experience.”

The Tennis Australia boss said the ultimate aspiration was to “climatise the whole space for rain and for heat”.

Cosm in Dallas and Intuit Dome in Los Angeles have immersive domes with massive surround screens that promise to revolutionise how fans experience sport.

In Las Vegas, the Sphere looms as a backdrop for events like the Formula 1 grand prix, projecting giant images of the event.

Amid speculation he is preparing to accept a new job running the US Open, Tiley appears determined to set more innovations for the Australian Open in train.

“We want to have a glass court, for example, with a digital, immersive surface that’s interactive,” he said at an earlier press conference.

“We’re looking at developing a sphere-like dome where we can bring an off-site experience on-site and have a completely immersive experience on 270-degree screens with 8K quality.”

With more than 1.3 million people through the gates for this year’s tournament, Tiley said the event needed more screens, shade, seats and space.

“There’s an oval on the other side of Gosch’s Paddock, AAMI Park, the MCG, these are good pieces of land and property, which we would look at and expand into,” he said.

“We’re on a journey of transforming the on-site fan experience. Next year, we’ve got big plans.”

Organisers had to manage long queues to enter Melbourne Park and jammed outside courts, at one stage even halting the sale of ground passes. Some fans requested refunds because they’d missed the beginning of play or had been unable to enter stadiums like KIA or John Cain Arena due to high demand.

Tiley said TA was exploring policies and technology to promote higher turnover on the outside courts and to prevent people from parking themselves in the same spot all day.

“Fans want to have the tennis experience; they want the activation,” he said. “Now, we’re a music festival, we’re a food festival. We’re going to become more of a fashion festival. This year was the first year in really making an extensive statement in [a] beauty and wellness festival.”

Read more on the Australian Open

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