One week out from the AFL season opener and a year on from opening, we talk to Tim McLernon of the Three Pound Group, which launched Australia’s biggest pub, The Camfield, slap-bang next to Perth’s Optus Stadium.
Tim McLernon, General Manager of the Three Pound Group says: “From a group point of view, which is The Stables, The Reveley at Elizabeth Quay, The Camfield and Kartel, a month-long pop-up bar, what’s gone well for us was opening The Camfield in February 2018, right next to the new Optus Stadium.
That’s been a massive positive. Opening a new venue of that sort of size can be a real challenge, from a staffing point of view to just dealing with that amount of people.”
The Camfield
“Everything has gone pretty much how we thought it would. Obviously in the weeks building up to it you wonder ‘what the hell have I done here?’ but that’s been a massive positive. We’ve successfully opened a very large venue with a big capacity that has 45 days a year where we’re at capacity from 12pm to 12am.
“We’ve got everything right – the staffing levels and being able to deal with game days. Even our back of house, which is probably the most important part in these big venues, you’ve got to have the right capacity to hold the stock and have managers able to marshal the troops.
“The Camfield was a four-year project. We identified and trained up a number of individuals from our other venues we’d earmarked to come to The Camfield as managers or to replace managers leaving our other venues. We really needed to bring our A-team here. We had to draw all of our best guys who I know aren’t going to throw the towel in at 6pm on a Sunday when there are 3,000 people here ‘because it’s a bit too much’.”