Stuart Barnes didn’t intend to become an entertainment centre boss – he didn’t even intend to come to Australia. But then he met a lady at sea.
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On Friday, as the WIN Sports and Entertainment Centres general manager announced he was leaving after 19 years, he recalled the beginning.
He was on P&O’s cruise ship the Sea Princess, a young Brit working as a DJ, when he met Annie Langshaw, who was working onboard as a dancer. Soon they were engaged, and he had to choose: disembark and start a life with her in Australia, or return to the Mediterranean on his own.
It’s clear the choice he made, and the pair will soon be able to start cruising again when Mr Barnes leaves his job in September.
He is taking redundancy amid a management restructure at Venues NSW, which owns both the entertainment centre and the football stadium.
His general manager position will become simply a venue manager’s job, so for Mr Barnes, who turns 62 this year, it was easy to decide the moment had come.
“It’s timely for me,” Mr Barnes told the Mercury. “I’ve been here a long time, and I think it’s time for me to take things a little easier. I’ve also got a new future – providing advice to other people, and I’m looking forward to that very much.
“But I will miss it.”
Mr Barnes plans to do some travelling – visiting his children overseas – before returning to the Illawarra to work as a consultant.
A fan of The Who since his youth, Mr Barnes said meeting Roger Daltrey was his most enjoyable moment at the WEC.
The hardest time? Perhaps the Western Grandstand fiasco, when the new roof structure was wrecked by wind, would be it.
He said building the stadium’s Northern and Western grandstands were both “very intense periods but really rewarding”. “Would it be too presumptuous to say I haven’t found it hard?” he said.
Stress was part and parcel of a job that involves management, and infrastructure, but is firmly rooted in the thrill of showbusiness.
“If you haven’t got stress in your life, and if you haven’t got the adrenaline flowing, as a venue manager, you don’t do your job,” Mr Barnes said.
As for the entertainment centre’s future, it’s about the need for an upgrade into a convention centre.
“There needs to be an acceptance that it needs to be funded,” he said.
“We are hopeful that the community will get behind a project to upgrade the WEC. I think the opportunities like you see this weekend (he points to the Crossfit athletes swarming outside the WEC) is what we can achieve if we’ve got the right venue.
“You need to build it, and they will come.”
