Christmas in November?
Retailers want to move celebrations
Pressure from Wellington’s retailers will see the capital’s two-day Christmas festival shifted from December to November.
The move came as a surprise to many last year when Wellington City Council announced it was scrapping its annual Santa Parade in favour of the two-day event, which saw most of Lambton Quay closed to traffic.
Despite some wet weather and the city still reeling from the Kaikoura earthquake, last year’s event on December 10 and 11 was hailed a success.
Thousands turned out to enjoy performances, music and entertainment, which prompted the council to bring A Very Welly Christmas back for 2017.
Although most retailers provided positive feedback about the event, some felt it had seriously impacted their business.
They had been lobbying the council to reconsider the timing of the Christmas festivities.
Yesterday, the council’s city events senior advisor, David Daniela, told a meeting of CBD stakeholders the event would now be held on November 25 and 26.
‘‘We looked over what we did last year and learned a lot. We saw things we could improve on. There was a lot of difficulty getting it off the ground, so we can go for an earlier date.’’
The council’s team was already working on the 2017 event, which would have the same footprint as last year and include closing Lambton Quay to traffic.
‘‘We see it as a fairly major event for the city, and Christmas is the opportunity to attract people to come to Wellington that weekend and we have to look wider than just shopping.’’
The council spent about $300,000 on last year’s event and has budgeted the same for 2017.
Nicole Cranfield, of Cranfields, told the meeting the festival had a significant negative impact on her Johnston St store.
Her business made only about a third of the revenue she had expected. People attending the festival did very little shopping, she said. ‘‘As a retailer, I want to get the point across how crucial December is for us. Please don’t touch the CBD in December, it will confuse our customers.’’
Cranfield questioned why the festival had to be ‘‘dragged out’’ and held over two days and why it was not held on the waterfront.
First Retail Group managing director Chris Wilkinson said about 50 retailers had been asked for feedback after last year’s event.
While many retailers benefited from the new celebration, it had challenged those in certain categories, he said. Store owners wanted a ‘‘clean-run’’ through the December period to maximise the Christmas shopping season.
‘‘They asked the council to have a rethink about when the most appropriate time for the festival might be. The council have compared it with other cities and trends.’’
Other retailers were pleased with the mix of people who came into the city and still had an appetite to get involved this year, he said.
In February, council strategy and communications director Jeremy Baker said he hoped more businesses would get involved in 2017’s A Very Welly Christmas.