Words: Helena Morgan

Marriner Group’s director of facilities and projects, Greg Watt, boasts a party trick that qualifies him as useful in a variety of situations – the ability to one day be able to quickly and efficiently unblock toilets in moments of high stress and another day to apply the finishing touches to a heritage-listed venue before a world premiere opening night performance.

“My standard line to people is that it’s definitely not always as glamorous as what you may think,” says Watt, who has been with Marriner Group for 24 years.

Marriner Group – owned by the eponymous family who bought the Princess Theatre in 1986 and went on to spare the Regent Theatre and Plaza Ballroom from demolition – operates five of Melbourne’s most beloved venues.

The Princess Theatre, Regent Theatre, Comedy Theatre, Forum Melbourne and Plaza Ballroom all fall under Watt’s scrupulous eye as facilities director, and he is eternally grateful for the honour of overseeing venues that transport patrons to a past epoch.

Like many facilities managers, Watt relishes the variety of his days, the teamwork and camaraderie, and the vast array of people who make up the staff and contribute to an inspiring community of creatives and artists.

“Every day presents a new challenge, especially given the age of all the buildings I’m dealing with,” he says. Working with heritage-listed buildings is filled with constant awe and wonder – and inevitable challenges – and there is minimal risk of Watt’s role lapsing into monotony or boredom.

Pressure points

Watt hails from a carpentry background and started as a maintenance carpenter with Marriner Group in 2000. He presumed he would stay in the role until another job presented itself; however, opportunities for career advancement arose, so he remained and became a maintenance manager, eventually becoming facilities director in 2008. He cites this career journey as a hefty and “steep” learning curve, yet the challenges of the job did not extinguish his love for working on heritage-listed buildings.

“All the nuances that go with facilities management were something that I had to learn pretty quickly and in a lot of areas that I probably wouldn’t have thought that I would ever learn,” says Watt.

Every facility manager quickly becomes an expert in essential yet relatively unheard-of areas such as HVAC. Watt admits he never thought he would have to strategise how to funnel up to 1000 people into bathrooms in under 15 minutes.

“There are pressure points in very condensed timeframes for us,” he says.

The popular show business idiom ‘the show must go on’ acutely resonates with Watt’s work. He disputes the assumption that directing the facilities of Melbourne entertainment venues brings after-parties and red-carpet entrances.

It’s a role characterised by extremes – dire plumbing issues, repairing heritage-listed ceilings, perfecting emergency procedure measures and ensuring patrons have a safe and memorable experience.

Watt says the Marriner Group’s company philosophy reflects the idea that facility management is inherently behind the scenes.

“We’re there to perform a role – we’re not the entertainment, so we’re very respectful in our interactions,” he says.

Facilities team strengthened by interdisciplinary efforts

Since 2016, Marriner Group has undertaken major construction and renovation works across the venues, which has seen Watt’s time divided between managing these projects and overseeing the theatres’ daily operation. In such periods of stress and intensity, Watt is assured by the diverse composition of his team.

“I try to employ a mixture of young people, but also tradespeople that have a love of anything heritage or old,” he says. Watt is thrilled to have numerous vintage car restorers on his team, which always adds depth and richness – a range of specialties only strengthens and enriches the team.

A day in the life for Watt may see him liaise with tradespeople about emergency problems from throughout the night and participate in meetings with various department heads regarding the regular servicing of venues, where the team will address curveballs such as lifts breaking down during inopportune moments.

The main obstacle of Watt’s role is dealing with the perks of heritage-listed buildings that were built to host contemporary events. However, the definition of a contemporary event has evolved since 1886 – the year the Princess Theatre was finished.

“When these venues were constructed, they were constructed to host contemporary performances and they had all the mod cons of that particular time,” says Watt.

Marriner Group is guided by a mission to sustain the historical integrity and authenticity of the venues even as time goes on. “The group very much wants to keep these buildings as their intended original use as contemporary art places,” says Watt. Each venue has a conservation management plan to action such visions.

Hosting a modern event in a heritage-listed building

The challenge for the facilities and projects team is to incorporate modern technology and safety measures into a 100-year-old heritage-listed building. “It’s been a major consideration in all of our renovations to make sure we still have a heritage experience, but also with the latest and greatest technology and safety for the public in the same building.”

Watt says the four-year-long showing of Harry Potter and the Cursed Child at the Princess Theatre – that took out the title for the longest-running play in Australian history – exemplified the complexity and delicacy of hosting a modern event in a heritage-listed building. Heritage Victoria was rigorously involved in this task which saw the theatre completely transformed.

“We completely modified the whole interior of the theatre to accommodate the show,” says Watt. “Every surface of the interior was painted a particular colour – the carpet and seats were removed and special effects installed.”

He illustrates the gravity of the Princess’ transformation by likening the process to painting the Sistine Chapel black and then restoring it back to its original form only a few years later.

More vintage than before

Marriner Group received a recent honourable nod from the Australian Institute of Architects for the restoration of the Princess Theatre post Harry Potter and the Cursed Child, particularly for the refinish paintwork on the interior of the theatre.

Following the restoration, the theatre was technically deemed more of the era than before the four-year-long show, which sounds slightly paradoxical, but a feat the Marriner Group operations and facilities team impressively achieved.

“We actually took it back to the 1922 Henry E. White decorative paint scheme, which was mind-blowing in itself to be able to have that contemporary show go into a theatre and then after actually have the theatre more heritage than what it was before the show came in,” says Watt.

This feat is rendered even more commendable as Watt says there was no global precedent to follow for the transformation process, which was made difficult when adhering to Victoria’s stringent heritage considerations.

“We were in that precarious spot of putting a really modern square box in a round hole, but we’ve had to learn along the way and work out ways to still comply with everything at the same time,” says Watt.

He speaks of theatres in Las Vegas or New York City often being purpose-built for a show. “At a lot of the other Harry Potter theatres around the world, they either built a theatre or built a new insight to another theatre to accommodate the show,” he says.

Serendipitous discoveries during restoration process

In 2016, the Forum closed for a year to facilitate a total reimagination of the inside auditorium – pairing it back to its glorious original state from when it first opened in 1929 and maximising the mixed-use purpose of the venue.

“The Forum’s a contemporary music venue most days, but we wanted to be able to flip it around so one night you’ve got a rock band in there and 2000 screaming punters, and then the next night you’ve got a corporate gig.”

Watt says the magic of working with heritage-listed buildings was revealed through discoveries made in the renovation process. “We uncovered mosaic tile floors that had been covered up with gaudy carpet since the 1960s that nobody knew was there and marble staircases that were completely crumbled that we pieced back together,” he says.

“To pull the carpet up and find what we found, but then to restore it, was quite an amazing thing.”

Such discoveries necessitated rallying tradespeople from various specialties in heritage-listed material. “We’ve developed very key relationships with artisan trades which continue to this day and those people contract back to us continually for everything from applied finishes and specialist paint finishes.”

Daily delights

Watt speaks of the possibilities and opportunities within restoring heritage-listed facilities – tradespeople who worked on the reimagination of the Forum and other facilities have since founded specialist businesses. “One person who comes to mind is a painter that migrated from Hungary and he’s now developed a business around heritage painting,” he says.

The restoration of the Princess Theatre’s Second Empire facade in 2018 also delivered charming and heartwarming discoveries that Watt says are unfamiliar to the standard built world.

“This refinish included reinstating hundreds of thousands of dollars’ worth of gold leaf on the front of the building,” he explains. “We flew tradesmen in from interstate that made lead flashings by hand in the same way that lead flashings were made in 1886.”

A Theatre experience plucked straight out of the late 1800s

Watt underscores the immense value the Marriner venues bring to the social and cultural tapestry of Melbourne as they are determined to provide an immersive theatre experience almost unmistakable from an afternoon or evening at the theatre in the late 1800s.

“Once you walk through those front doors, we try to craft as much of that heritage experience as possible,” he says. “We have a vast staff of ushers that are trained a certain way. We minimise digital signage.”

Marriner Group works to avoid ostentatious reminders of the contemporary world such as an alcohol sponsor splashing signage across the bar. “We fiercely resisted having digital signage above refreshment areas,” says Watt. “We try to keep everything as much as we can in that historical moment.”

For Watt, the Regent Theatre – which originally functioned as a picture theatre – is the pinnacle of a breathtaking theatre experience. “It’s the most spectacular heritage theatre space in Australia, in my opinion,” he says.

Watt revels in each venue having a distinctive personality and therefore symbolising a different sibling in the Marriner Group family. “The Regent is a big grand theatre, the Princess is a typical live theatre, the Forum is a music venue and the Comedy Theatre is a thousand-seat playhouse.”

In addressing whether venues such as those run by the group would benefit from government input, Watt suggests the imminent transformation of the historical architectural landscape of Melbourne would possibly be assisted by greater government support even at a local level, as noted overseas.

He is encouraged by the wider sustainability movement and the willingness of organisations to adopt environmentally responsible maintenance practices.

“There’s certainly an appetite for change amongst the right people,” he says.

Once-in-a-lifetime projects

Watt’s time with Marriner Group has been marked by highlights. He reminisces fondly about being involved in the restoration of the Princess Theatre facade which offered a ring-side seat to a project with an impact that will transcend generations. “It was a once-in-a-lifetime project – the finishes we put on there, they won’t be touched probably in my lifetime.”

Additionally, as an avid music lover and part-time band member, working at the Forum is nothing short of special. He has enjoyed observing the Forum grow into a cherished and credible venue for Melburnians.

“It just needed a lot of work and a lot of love and in 2019, 2020, 2022 and 2023 it won a Music Victoria Award for Best Large Venue,” says Watt.

This post was originally published on fmmedia.com.au