Creekfest needs funds or faces axe

Hammer said the new strain was very hard to diagnose because its symptoms were more variable than previous strains.

‘‘They can present looking like any form of infection and appear randomly for no apparent reason.

‘‘Everyone should be diligent with hygiene – don’t share drinks and cover your mouth while sneezing or coughing.’’

Starting next week the government will launch an emergency vaccine programme to fight the strain in Northland after three of the six deaths this year occurred in the region.

This year, 29 people had contracted the strain nationwide, which was more than twice as many as in 2017. Organisers of Porirua’s Creekfest have a fortnight to raise up to $70,000 or the popular event will be cancelled.

Porirua Wha¯nau Centre chief executive Liz Kelly said the centre had raised only half of what was needed to run 2019’s festival.

‘‘We will have to cancel the February 2019 Creekfest unless we can find between $60,000 and $70,000 in the next fortnight,’’ she said.

‘‘The funding shortfall is partly because many of our traditional funders have reduced budgets and partly because there have been a number of events being held in the Wellington region in February 2019, and we’ve been competing for funding with other worthy causes.’’

The Porirua Wha¯ nau Centre had in the past underwritten the event but its funds were now fully committed to supporting local families, she said.

The Creekfest from earlier in 2018 featured singer/songwriter Stan Walker and had a crowd of more than 25,000 people.

‘‘If we cannot achieve our funding goal in the next fortnight we will have to cancel Creekfest 2019,’’ Kelly said.

‘‘One option is to move to a biennial event but that would be a terrible pity as it is an event people support in large numbers and look forward to each year.’’

Porirua mayor Mike Tana said the Porirua City Council already put ‘‘tens of thousands’’ of dollars towards the festival, but the cost of running it kept increasing.

‘‘I’m the consummate optimist. I’m going to do everything in my power to make sure it gets the money.’’

He already had some good leads on where to find the extra money.