Lady Gaga arrived with 18 massive trucks.

It was during her global Monster Ball tour in 2009, a journey that saw her play 200 shows to 2.5 million people from London to Las Vegas, Madrid to Mexico and Washington to Wollongong – one of the more intimate venues on the tour.

When her gear arrived we thought, there’s no way we can fit a stadium-sized rig into our beachside venue; 50 tonnes of steel plus lighting and props.

We were concerned when a production manager for the promoter said “Don’t worry mate – we’ll make it fit.” And we did.

Shortly after we opened we held a boxing match. Two hours from the event opening we’re doing last minute checks and realised (embarrassingly), there was no boxing ring.

Somebody knew one of the TV gladiators that trained at a gym nearby and made a panicked phone call.

The boxing ring arrived 30 minutes before the show on the back of two utes and we quickly put it together.

We started the show late, but at least we started.

We’ve had so many “heart throbs” here over the years – Cliff Richard, Tom Jones, David Cassidy and even Demi Roussos – the most unlikely sex symbol.

But the thing they all have in common is that... women throw their bras and underwear on stage at them.

I don’t know whether women get overcome with emotion and whip them off mid-song, or whether they bring a spare pair in, but regardless of how they get here, they all end up in the same place – the bin.

The Illawarra Business Chamber holds the record for the largest dinner party.

Their annual event usually has about 900 attendees, but in 2010 we managed to squeeze 1030 people into a gala dinner – by flipping the venue layout north to south, instead of east to west.

Logistically, it was a big ask (we’d prefer to seat about 850-900 people) but we managed to pull it off.

“American Pie” is already a long song at over eight minutes long, but singer Don McLean turned his biggest hit from 1971 into a half-hour anthem.

The crowd were enjoying it so much, he kept repeating verses and choruses and verses and choruses until we realised it had been going for 20 minutes.

John Farnham. He’s the most gracious visitor.

Every night after performing he hangs out by the stage door signing autographs for fans.

He always has time to chat to staff, which makes his visits special for us all.

Once, he even took photos with our head usher, John’s biggest fan. It made her year.

The award for most down-to-earth star goes to Brendan O’Carroll from Mrs Brown’s Boys.

He spent more time in the loading dock hanging out with staff than he did in his dressing room.

After every show, he’d spend time with fans, taking photos, laughing, cracking jokes and signing autographs.

English singer and staunch vegetarian Morrissey has an extremely strict tour rider. We had to make sure no meat or meat-based products were sold at the venue.

We had to update our conditions of entry to include meat searches, as the former frontman for The Smiths was concerned fans would throw meat at him. So, security at the bag check were checking for alcohol, drugs, fireworks, weapons, and ham sandwiches.

During Morrissey’s performance he showed a very graphic video to his song, “Meat is Murder” and four people fainted. They had to be carried out.

Before we opened in 1998, a wharfie strike held back delivery of the basketball floor. As we were opening as a basketball venue, the floor was a key element.

Eventually, just two weeks before the grand opening it was released, but none of us had any idea how to build it and there were no YouTube tutorials then to show us.

So we sat down with two thick instruction manuals and gave it our best shot. It took a full week to put together but we got there ... just.

More than 40,000 children have been to our annual KidzWish Children’s Christmas Party in the 15 years it’s been running, surprising so many sick and disadvantaged children and their carers.

Meatloaf was probably our most eccentric performer. On one occasion he was tired and didn’t want to perform, so he pretended he’d been bitten by a poisonous spider and wanted to go to hospital. He was eventually convinced to perform.

Cirque du Soleil is always an amazing show and we’ve been lucky to have two shows.

The loveliest thing about having performers of such a high calibre is they do their warm-ups in public, at the beach.

Passers-by do double takes when they see people tumbling and performing “house of cards” tricks on the soft sand.

In 2000 we held a World Wrestling Federation event, with star guest wrestler - former NBA basketball player Dennis Rodman.

He walked ten steps into the venue through the wrestler’s walkway, threw his arms in the air and the crowd went nuts. He picked up a chair and hurled it at one of the wrestlers. The crowd went nuts.

Then he spun around and stormed out of the venue. The crowd went nuts! And that’s where things took a dark turn… He didn’t come back. In fact, he point-blank refused to return to the ring.

He spent more time walking from the carpark to the venue then he did inside the actual venue! Again, the crowd went nuts, but this time – not in a good way. They were furious… started throwing bottles into the ring.

It was the one and only time I’d seen a crowd react that way. Eventually they calmed down, but the night was sullied.

Later we discovered that Rodman had staged the whole thing, so he could save his wrestling “prowess” for an event the following week in Sydney.

People had paid to come and see him and it ended up being a “blink and you’ll miss it” moment.

Chris Isaak would always bring his surfboard in with his gear and as soon as he’d finished his sound check, he’d hit the waves.

And singer Jack Johnson launched his 2008 world tour in Wollongong, because one of his best mates lives there and they wanted to hang out together surfing.

When the Wollongong Hawks moved from the Snakepit to WIN Entertainment Centre in 1998 it was a controversial move.

But the move allowed the sale of five times the number of tickets to matches. It went from a volunteer-run organisation in a tin shed to a world-class event centre with catering staff.

Thirty tonnes of dirt, 20 tonnes of steel fencing and 100 tonnes of bulls, the pro bull-riding events are always memorable.

Especially the clean-up job afterwards. We’ve learnt to put builder’s plastic around the loading dock, because bulls tend to spray far and wide when they go to the loo.

The Southern Stars annual performances are incredible. We’ve had more than 50,000 performers in 18 shows.

With around 3000 performers per show, there are hundreds of memories. One that stands out is a beautiful dramatic dance and music piece in 2015 about a young man leaving his wife and kids behind to go to war.

Sadly, he never returned and to signify his death all performers on stage silently and slowly raised up a red poppy. You could have heard a pin drop.

Booking Bob Dylan for the opening performance in 1998 was huge. Having him return for a 20th anniversary performance last month was incredible – a two-decade full-circle moment for us.

Ed Sheeran is an anomaly in the industry because he’s so simple on stage, just a man and his guitar.

Even though he was well-known in England when he played here, he wasn’t the global superstar he is now.

Tickets to his 2013 show sold out in five minutes and he played to a crowd of almost 5500.

Five years later he was selling out ANZ Stadium and playing to nearly 250,000 fans over three nights, so we were very lucky to get him when he was on the way up.

Pink came in 2007 and still holds the record for the highest-selling single show. 

She came with 54 tonnes of equipment – fleets of semi-trailers – filled with lighting kits, acrobatic gear and winches to get everything up to the ceiling, plus the biggest sound system we’ve ever had. 

She performed upside down, hanging from the ceiling and sang underwater – it blew everyone away.

Read more: Future in spotlight as Wollongong’s entertainment centre turns 20