Festival postponed until 2021

IN another hit to the arts community, the twoyearly Dunedin Arts Festival will no longer go ahead in October.

The festival will instead run next year during what would have been its “offyear”.

Otago Festival of the Arts chairman Trevor Kempton said the 2020 festival would have been Charlie Unwin’s first year as director and a range of “exciting” new initiatives had been planned.

“It is the right call given the current circumstances and we are working closely with our very supportive core funders and other stakeholders to ensure the festival will still go ahead in 2021.”

Mr Unwin said the arts were playing an important role in helping people through the current lockdown.

“We know that they will be even more important once we try to return to some sort of normality in the future.”

He said the festival would be at the forefront of that for the Otago region.

Dunedin Mayor Aaron Hawkins said the decision to postpone the event was sad news, but not unexpected.

“The performing arts community were one of the first groups to be affected and may be among the last to recover due to their need for large gatherings to exist.”

He said the arts festival relied on international travel for its performers and, at this stage, nobody knew when the option for travel would return.

Practitioners and producers would be offered shortterm support by Creative New Zealand.

“Council will definitely want to be involved in supporting the arts and festivals when we get into recovery mode,” Mr Hawkins said.

A date for the festival has not yet been decided.