Mangonui waterfront festival a success

AFTER months of planning, the success of the Harcourts Mangonui Waterfront Festival was in the hands of the weather gods. For the first time in seven years, they conspired against us and made for a wet afternoon.

Fortunately, the people of the Far North are resilient, and although numbers were down on previous years, over 2500 people flooded — with the rain — into Waterfront Drive, and from the feedback received so far, most had a fantastic day.

The key purpose of the event is to celebrate produce, arts and entertainment of the Far North. But it is also about our local economy receiving a welcome boost before winter. Over a quarter of the festival goers were from outside the Far North District, many from overseas.

This year we added a third stage, the Be Free Youth stage. It was fantastic to showcase the upcoming talent of the Far North and the quality of the performers who turned up for the open mic session was amazing. We also moved the main stage to the Mangonui Hotel. Kurfew rocked the main stage so hard that a few bottles from the adjacent bottle store literally danced off the shelves!

We start planning the 2019 Festival now. Fortunately, with the support of our main sponsors, Harcourts Bay of Islands, Pub Charity and everyone who turned up on the day, it looks like we will cover the operating costs, which are approximately $40,000. The main costs include event management, security, facilities, advertising, sound, staging and entertainment.

The event is not intended to make a profit. If there is surplus cash after paying all the various costs including the planning costs for the 2019 festival, the organising committee will make donations to local charities.

Huge thanks to all the organisations that help with the event, in particular Mangonui Lions who work tirelessly throughout the day. Please take a look at the Harcourts Waterfront Festival website to see everyone in our community who helped to make this fantastic event happen.

An extra thanks to the team at Mangonui Haulage who came to our rescue and put metal on the car park exits to help vehicles which would otherwise have been stranded.