Mussel festival goes ahead
The Havelock Mussel Festival has drawn a crowd of thousands, the day after a harvest concert in Marlborough was cancelled over Covid-19 concerns.
Organisers pulled the pin on the Framingham Harvest Concert an hour before doors opened on Friday, after wine industry members expressed concern about the risk of newly arrived internationals, who make up the harvest workforce, partying together.
But Havelock Mussel Festival organiser Hans Neilson said after putting ‘‘a lot of thought and consideration’’ into it, they had ‘‘decided to proceed’’ with the event on Saturday, on advice from the Ministry of Health.
According to the Ministry of Health website, it did not ‘‘propose altering arrangements for public events’’.
However it did advise event organisers to remind the public not to attend if they were feeling unwell or if they had been in mainland China, Iran, Italy or Korea in the past 14 days.
Neilson said they had spoken to local health officials, had a full ‘‘health and safety plan’’ and had set up hand washing stations around the festival.
‘‘It’s front of mind for us. Ultimately we just had to rely on advice from the Ministry of Health, which is to proceed,’’ Neilson said.
However, many events around New Zealand were being cancelled due to coronavirus, including The National Remembrance Event for the March 15 terror attack.
Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern said while we still had no community transmission of Covid-19 in New Zealand, they were taking a precautionary approach to protect the health of all New Zealanders.
As of yesterday, eight people in New Zealand had tested positive for coronavirus.
On Friday night, Framingham managing director Tom Trolove said they made the ‘‘difficult’’ decision to cancel, after wine industry colleagues expressed concern.
Trolove said they were left wondering whether to ‘‘push on’’ after hearing Auckland’s two-day Pasifika festival had been cancelled.
‘‘We literally had everything ready to go.’’
They had put extra measures in place, like hand sanitizer and labels for glassware, but organisers met on Friday afternoon to discuss their options.
‘‘It was just the whole feeling of what’s the right thing to do and what’s the responsible thing to do,’’ Trolove said.
Trolove said he ‘‘almost cried’’ when they reached the decision. The whole team had put ‘‘their heart and soul into it’’.
‘‘It’s hard to navigate because you don’t want to be the guy that overreacts, but then you want to be the guy that’s responsible.’’
All Framingham tickets would be refunded.
Wine Marlborough general manager Marcus Pickens said they supported Framingham in its ‘‘brave’’ decision to cancel.
Pickens had received calls from other wineries, who thought there were ‘‘quite high’’ risks around the Harvest Concert going ahead, but said Wine Marlborough didn’t place pressure on them to cancel.
The annual Saint Clair Vineyard Half Marathon, which draws huge crowds to Marlborough, was drawing near to its scheduled date of May 9.
Co-ordinator Chris Shaw said they were ‘‘keeping an eye’’ on the situation, and following advice.
And the Feast Marlborough committee is discussing plans for Feast Marlborough as a matter of urgency.