Neville Bonner Bridge lights up for grand finals

The Neville Bonner Bridge showed its true colours on the weekend, lighting up maroon to kick-off a four-night illumination in support of the Queensland teams playing in various grand finals.

The lights on the mast, which peak at more than 75 metres above the river and the two arches of the bridge, turned maroon on Thursday night before the team colours of the Lions, Titans and Broncos were individually given the spotlight.

On Friday night, the 320-metre super-structure lit up in support of the Brisbane Lion’s quest for a grand final flag, whilst on Saturday evening the light blue and gold colours of the Gold Coast Titans who played for the NRLW premiership featured. Finally, on Sunday night the bridge was ablaze with the Brisbane Bronco’s gold and maroon colours.

Brisbane-based CEO and Managing Director of The Star Entertainment Group Robbie Cooke said it was a brilliant way of highlighting state pride.

“We were thrilled to turn on the lights of the Neville Bonner Bridge for the first time ever to mark the historic Matilda’s World Cup finals appearance, and over the past four days, Queenslanders got another chance to see teams that are close to their hearts celebrated in the same way”.

“The bridge of many colours was a brilliant celebration of three Queensland teams in three grand finals, and there was no better way of kicking it off than turning entirely maroon”.

The bridge lights were turned on at 6:30pm each night and beamed until 5:00am the following day.

Named in honour of Australia’s first Federal Indigenous parliamentarian, the Neville Bonner Bridge has already become an iconic addition to the Brisbane landscape with 500 lucky Queenslanders the first to walk across it just weeks ago.

It’s expected there will be 10,000 pedestrian crossings a day when the bridge opens to the public as part of the $3.6b tourism precinct’s staged opening in August 2024.

Neville Bonner Bridge fast construction facts:

Design: Grimshaw/WSP

Builder: Fitzgerald Constructions

• Permanent steelwork – 1000tonnes (superstructure and bridge deck)
• Temporary steelwork – 900tonnes (including temp piles)
• Concrete – 2750m3 in-situ concrete, 550m3 precast concrete
• Overall height of the mast – 77m above mean sea level
• Total length of multi-stranded suspension cables – 1,200m
• The total length of strands within the cables – 22,700m
• Stairs and DA-compliant ramp at South Bank landing
• Connects to the restaurant and retail level 4 of an integrated resort with escalators/lifts to William and George Streets