On cinema nights, seven floors above the Brisbane River, a crowd settles in for a movie under the open sky at The Star Brisbane. The red bean bags they're sitting in, with The Star's logo on the back, are ours. There are 100 of them up there for Skyline Cinema, plus another 20 in aqua on the lawn by the cafe.
They're permanent fixtures, not event hire, which makes this a different job from the festival work we do. Here's how it came together, what a rooftop asks of a bean bag, and where Queen's Wharf is heading.
From Treasury Casino to Queen's Wharf
For almost thirty years Brisbane's casino lived in the old Treasury Building on George Street. It closed on 25 August 2024, and four days later The Star Brisbane opened at Queen's Wharf, the $3.6 billion precinct built on the river side of the CBD.
It's a big site. There's a hotel, more than a dozen restaurants and bars, a Sky Deck sitting 100 metres above the river, and the Neville Bonner Bridge walking you straight across to South Bank. A lot of the old government buildings on the site have been kept and are being brought back into use.
The part we care about is the Leisure Deck on Level 7. It's 12,000 square metres of open space, about two football fields, sitting 35 metres above street level between the towers. It's free to walk onto, and it's where The Star puts the things that need room: lawn games, live music and the cinema.
Skyline Cinema
Skyline Cinema launched in March 2025 with weekly Wednesday-night sessions. At launch, a ticket got you a bean bag, popcorn and a soft drink, and you watched the film with the city lit up around you.
Outdoor cinema is the one job where a bean bag beats every other kind of seat. A camp chair is fine for twenty minutes. Two hours in, people are shifting around trying to get comfortable. A high-back bean bag holds you at the right angle to look up at a screen, and nobody's knees end up in the back of your head.
What we supplied
- 100 red Copacabana chairs with The Star logo on the back, for Skyline Cinema.
- 20 aqua Copacabana chairs, also with the logo on the back, for the lawn at the cafe.
- The fabric: heavy-duty olefin. It's fade resistant, stain resistant and water resistant.
- The size: each chair holds 500 litres of fill, so it's a proper seat for an adult, not a floor cushion.
Red is a strong colour choice and a smart one. Under cinema lighting, 100 red chairs in rows look like a venue rather than a pile of furniture, and they come up well in the photos people post afterwards. That's free advertising for The Star every cinema night.
What a rooftop asks of a bean bag
A rooftop seven floors up is harder on outdoor furniture than ground level. A few things matter more up there.
Sun. There's nothing between the Leisure Deck and the Queensland sun for most of the day. Cheap fabric fades in a season. Olefin is fade resistant, which matters when your branding is red.
Wet weather and dew. Evening sessions mean dew on everything by the second half of the film. Water-resistant fabric means it beads and wipes off instead of soaking in and staying damp for the next session.
Spills. Popcorn, soft drinks and wine, in the dark. Stain resistance isn't a nice extra at a cinema. It's the reason the chairs still look presentable a year in.
Upkeep. Bean fill compresses with use, so permanent stock needs topping up now and then to keep its shape. At Howard Smith Wharves, just down the river, it's every few months. If you're running a venue, put it on the maintenance calendar from day one.
What's next for Queen's Wharf
The precinct is still growing. In April 2026, The Star finished selling its half of the Queen's Wharf joint venture to its Hong Kong partners, Chow Tai Fook Enterprises and Far East Consortium. The Star still runs the casino. More hotels, including the Dorsett and the Rosewood, are still to open, and Brisbane hosts the Olympic and Paralympic Games in 2032.
For a rooftop that's already built for crowds, that means more nights, more events and more people looking for somewhere to sit. Between Queen's Wharf and Howard Smith Wharves, a fair share of Brisbane's riverfront is now sitting on our bean bags.
Planning outdoor cinema or rooftop seating?
The same setup suits rooftop bars, hotel pool decks, outdoor cinemas, resorts and clubs. Anywhere seating has to live outside and carry your brand. Have a look at our custom and branded bean bags, the Copacabana, our resort and hotel bean bags and the full outdoor bean bag range. If it's a one-off event rather than a permanent fit-out, my festival seating guide covers layout and pack-down, and the Betty's Burgers Story Bridge launch shows how far custom work can go.
For more outdoor cinemas, see what we supplied to Rooftop Movies and Telethon Community Cinemas in Perth, and QV Live in Melbourne. Our outdoor cinema seating guide covers layout and seat choice.
Brisbane locals can also start at our Brisbane bean bags page, which covers next-day delivery and our best sellers in Brisbane.
Call me on 1800 888 911 with your numbers, colours and logo, and I'll tell you honestly what the timeline looks like.
Debra DeBoer
Bean Bags R Us
