The Auckland Festival

The Auckland Council is making a mistake if they think that we can run a cheaper or cut-down Auckland Festival. This year, overseas visitors attended the festival and some even extended their stays. Kiwis from the provinces have come too, but best of all, locals flocked and have raved to their friends and rellies about what a good festival we have.

Culturally, Auckland has come of age. This has taken a while so let's break out the champagne.

It is better to have a biannual festival and do it well than a yearly festival which may be second rate. If we have it annually, it also clashes with Womad and other festivals. There will be collateral damage to Wellington's well-established festival and there will be a loss of good will.

Two other events which were successful and funded reasonably well under the Auckland City Council but have become unintended victims of the supercity are the Films in Parks and Music in Parks. Both have had their budgets slashed and are now poor imitations of what they once were. Hopefully they will be re-established and promoted. These are good examples of what happens when you try to do something without it being resourced.

The Auckland festival is too important to Auckland to suffer the ignominy and fate of these other events