Festival of Light scrapped for 2014

April 2nd, 2014
[by David Armstrong]

The mid-winter Festival of Light will not take place this year due to insufficient enthusiasm for the event from businesses and its organiser, Our Town Motueka.

This community and retail event - anchored by the hanging of Christmas lights across the CBD - has been an institution in Motueka for many years, but since the OTM sub-committee which ran it folded three years ago the festival has become more difficult to mount.

The event's main objective has been "to not only bring community and businesses together, but attract people from all over the region to visit town and shop over the winter season," OTM administrator Linda Woodgate says.

In 2010, for example, the nine-day Festival of Lights featured more than a dozen community events, most organised by separate groups for an exceptionally wide variety of audiences. Subsequently the event was significantly downsized and then dropped altogether in 2012.

Last year a revised version, slightly renamed Festival of Light, ran for over a month and there were far fewer events mounted specifically for it. Two large but expensive events were cancelled through lack of support.

A large part of the problem is that the organisation is now essentially down to one person on behalf of the smallish OTM committee.

An ideas meeting was held last week but only six people attended, and there were not enough people putting up their hands to help. Businesses (who are the ones that pay for OTM to exist) were also surveyed but few responded.

"As OTM works for the businesses of the Town we needed their support to run the event," Linda says. "Some thought is was lovely but did nothing for their business."

The decision to scrap the winter event this year means OTM "will be running a more focused promotion for the businesses in the winter", she adds.

Comment by William Cleaver:
[Posted 5 April 2014]

No surprises here. Festival of Light has been barking up the same tree for so long. I fear that the past and the current organizers of this event have failed to listen and consider what people are actually wanting.

Firstly the community are just not interested. I was told once that unless piped into living rooms they just not interested. This was evident in 2010 when less than 1% of the population of Motueka attended any events at the time. This is based on fact because my wife did one of the events. Secondly, who on Earth wants a festival to run for a week let alone a month. Alexandra Blossom Festival and Tauranga Festival of lights are for a weekend.

It has been mentioned to get tourist and travelers to come to the town. Now really would any one of us go to Blenheim say for a week long or month long event? I would spend my money on a weekend in Aussie.

Get with the program OTM. Wrap this festival around an already current event like Sky Dive Boogie or AMP show. As for doing something for the business, DON'T do the $5000 shop event as last year. The only person to benefit was the winner. 20 business get 20 business mentors for 2 years for under $5k. This is worth way more. BNZ provided us with a mentor and without him we would have closed and moved on like alot of other businesses have.

Comment by Sue Clark:
[Posted 5 April 2014]

I would like to see a Mardi Gras with local bands, a food market selling delicious local products - some cooked. Clowns, balloons and perhaps a cycle race or something that has the finishing line at the museum. Seems that the public enjoys bike racing, walking, running etc, and this would bring people other than locals to town.

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