File photo. Festival of Lights at Pukekura Park in New Plymouth in 2022.. Photo: Supplied / Andy Jackson
The plug is being pulled on the winter edition of New Plymouth's popular Festival of Lights as part of a council cost-cutting drive.
The event, which features light installations, music and food stalls throughout the CBD and foreshore, is to be mothballed from next year, though this weekend's festival will go ahead.
Event director Lisa Ekdahl said the four-day festival over Matariki didn't stack up in the current economic climate.
"We were all asked to find savings and as an event, the festival comes in a bit more costly than the summer festival because it's a shorter timeframe, but the expenses can be quite similar, installing light features and even their hire."
The event would cost about $500,000 to put on this year and attracted about 15,000 visitors last year who generated a spend of $1.25 million, according to a Berl report.
Ekdahl said the plan was to put the event on hiatus until the redevelopment of the Huatoki Plaza, West End Precinct was completed in about 2027.
"Obviously, it's a popular event ... and we don't really want to be scaling it back and delivering an event of lesser quality. So it's better to pause it and come back when we're in a financially more stable position, so that we don't damage the brand at all."
The summer Festival of Lights which attracted 175,000 visitors last year generating a spend of $17.9 million over 37 nights would go ahead as usual.
Ekdahl said the events team were excited to send the Winter Edition out with a bang.
"We've got four nights of entertainment and there's an interactive events on the Sunday night. We've got live fire, flame performances, live music, 12 light installations right across Huatoki Plaza, Puke Ariki Landing and onto the Coastal Walkway.
"So yeah, kapa haka, food trucks, mulled wine, just, you know, to keep you warm and it'll be great a great time. It's dark as we know at 5pm, so you can bring the kids down early and we go until 10pm, so there's five hours to enjoy it."
This year's event featured 12 light installations, including Elysian Arcs by artist collective Atelier Sisu which comes fresh from Vivid Sydney, one of the world's leading light festivals.
A large-scale, inflatable installation it was inspired by the Gods' Paradise of Ancient Greek mythology and invited people inside the glowing, tubular forms that stretch into iridescent tunnels.
Mayor Neil Holdom made no apology for flicking the switch on the FOL Winter Pop-up Festival.
"As an organisation we've been going through budgets line-by-line looking at how we can save money to try to minimise the rate increases because we're aware that New Zealanders are in the midst of a cost of living crisis and we had to prioritise kind of investments in core infrastructure, things like water, transport, roads and things like that.
"And so we'll have the winter festival lights this weekend and then it'll take a break for a couple of years and we'll potentially bring it back."
Holdom said the decision whether to bring back the winter version of the festival would be one for the next council to consider.
"You need to think back to the reason that we actually started the Winter Pop-Up [event] which was because during Covid we had to cancelled the Festival of Lights in summer, which is obviously one of the major events on the calendar.
"People were disappointed and our team are quite innovative. They came up with this idea. We've run with it. It's been hugely popular, but we've actually just got to look at managing our costs and it's a luxury that that we can't afford for the next couple of years."
Lina Haseltine, who owned Petite Cha a bubble tea cafe at Puke Ariki Landing, put on extra staff and opened longer hours during the lights festival.
"For example, last year I didn't close until 11.30pm and basically it makes up most of our winter sales and sees us through winter."
She said mothballing the festival would be a blow for businesses in the area.
"It's a bit of a bummer because that's the one thing we look for every year during winter time to give us a bit of a boost, so it is unfortunate that it's closing down because that is our winter boost."
The owner of a nearby bar and restaurant said the decision to mothball the festival was disappointing.
The woman, who preferred not to be identified, said the Winter Pop-up boosted bookings by as much as 40 percent.
"This year we are going to be very busy. We are prepared for Thursday, Friday and Saturday staying open until late.
"Especially upstairs. Everybody's booking tables to watch the lights and everything and especially in winter we don't get many people wanting to book tables upstairs, but for Festival of Lights we get more bookings, so that helps the business a lot."
She thought the council should reconsider its decision.
