Events across the museum precinct

HarbourWatch is one room inside a precinct that SRG caters end to end, so a booking here can stay at the café or take in a good deal more of the museum. Events run from 10 guests to 2,500, indoors and out, in banquet or cocktail format, and an events team works through the space, the timings and the catering with you before the day.

The two rooms beside the café are usually where it starts. HarbourWatch North is the larger, with bi-fold glass walls that fold back onto the boardwalk and the harbour along the length of it, and it takes a dinner with dancing or canapés for a crowd. HarbourWatch South is smaller and quieter, built for a workshop, a small meeting or a breakout, and the pair are often taken together for one night. Both look over the museum's heritage fleet.

Past them the precinct opens up. The Ben Lexcen Terrace sits above the boardwalk and seats 270 in the open air, often paired with the Lighthouse Gallery, which takes 250 at banquet or 400 standing and can admit a car or a boat through its loading dock. The Terrace Room seats 130 behind floor-to-ceiling windows, the Theatre seats 210 on tiered seating, the City View Room seats 110 between HMAS Onslow and HMAS Vampire and answers for a wet night, and the Tasman Light Gallery seats 100 under a suspended naval helicopter and the original Tasman Island lighthouse lens. The vessels take events of their own: drinks for 120 on the upper decks of HMAS Vampire, dinner for 12 in Cook's Great Cabin aboard the Endeavour replica, and 80 at Wharf 7 among the Sydney Heritage Fleet. Virtual tours of several rooms and a venue information pack come from the events team on request.