Carrara Indoor Sports Stadium — Attraction in Gold Coast City

If I could give less stars I would. Small businesses considering booking Carrara Indoor Stadium for your event - BEWARE! They are more than happy to prioritise larger bookings (aka bigger paychecks) even if it means kicking little guys out on the street and leaving them weeks out of pocket!

I booked the stadium a month in advance, all went smoothly. They asked for payment at least 10 days prior to the booking. No worries, I paid up my $300+. After not selling as many tickets to the workshop I was hosting at the venue I called them curiously 6 days before my booking to see if I could amend the booking from both courts down to just one. “We’ll have to get back to you on Monday” they said. Ofcourse no worries. Monday rolls around and I receive a phone call explaining what I expected - I couldn’t amend my booking within that 10 day period. Again, no worries. We’d actually sold a few more tickets over the weekend anyway so everything was AOK. About half an hour later I receive another phone call from the same number at Carrara “oh great, they’ve changed their mind!” I think. No no no. “Oh hi Nicola, uh, look, we’ve actually had a larger booking need to come and bump in earlier, so we’re actually going to have to cancel your booking. The only other option we can offer you is a smaller shared venue with a time slot starting hours after yours. Sorry about that. You’ll get a refund.” I. Couldn’t. Believe it. After pleading my case to multiple levels of Carrara Booking Office workers, we were left without a venue. They wouldn’t even let me amend it an hour earlier but were happy to turf us out on the spot. I wasted a day and a half calling around other venues (I have 2 little kids so everything takes alittle longer!) to no avail. I had to cancel the workshop, forfeit the shopify, PayPal and website fees, spend another day notifying and refunding everyone who bought tickets - but the best bit is yet to come. Even if I had have found a suitable substitute venue, I likely would not have been able to afford it because it’s now 2 WEEKS AFTER THEY CANCELLED MY BOOKING AND I STILL HAVE NOT RECEIVED MY REFUND.

Gold Coast City Council have dropped the ball big time on this one. I know nothing will come of this. I know my measly 3 hour booking is nothing in the grand scheme of things and certainly nothing to them. But that speaks volumes of their priorities - if I mean nothing then so do you, fellow members of the community. Don’t book there if you don’t want the risk of being shunted for bigger bucks. All other venues I called could not believe the treatment we received. I’m not expecting to take on a beast like GCCC but god help me if I won’t tell every person I know to avoid that venue in the future! Onya...

Both managers were extremely rude and unprofessional when demanding to see my medical exemption for not wearing a mask while attending a 5 day tournament. They called in security on the last day to target me and refuse me entry if I didn't show proof, about to come to blows before the meat head agreed he was in breach of section 94H of the privacy act and allowed me entry. He said management had told him because they were a private organisation they could ask for people's private medical information, he admitted he knew it was BS and...

What an absolute gem on the Gold Coast. It transforms from basketball to netball to volleyball to wheelchair AFL to god knows what else. It is huge, huge, huge! The cafe is good (although small) with an ok variety at an ok price (card only though, no cash). Parking is ample and undercover although in competition days it fills quickly. Courts can be hired on weekends for mates to shoot hoops for circa $35 an hour. Gold Coast Suns AFL team HQ is located there as well so may even spot a...