Buskers, business and buzzwords
Ed Sheeran is Dunedin’s $34 million man. Philip Matthews asks why Christchurch is missing out on that money.
Who knew that an orange-haired singer could be such a cash cow? Dunedin, you may have heard, has gone crazy for Ed Sheeran. Edmania has struck like a fever.
The local council scrapped Easter drinking laws for thirsty fans. It paid for a mural of the singer and even created a Sheeran governance group to ‘‘paint the town Ed’’. This could be Dunedin’s biggest gold rush since the actual gold rush.
But isn’t there also something just a little cringey about all this rebranding? The city is rolling over and begging for those Sheeran dollars. Or should we be envious in Christchurch?
The latter, says Linda Falwasser, general manger of attraction at ChristchurchNZ, the promotional agency formed in 2017 from a merger of Christchurch City Council’s major events arm and other agencies. Its role is city boosterism in a hyper-competitive events-based economy.
‘‘We are the capital city of the South Island,’’ Falwasser says. ‘‘That should be us.’’
Look at Dunedin’s numbers. The city will see 65,000 additional visitors and an additional $34 million will slosh into the city. All because Dunedin is making such a thing of three concerts by one man. By contrast, Christchurch’s already vulnerable restaurants and hotels will be emptier than ever over Easter.
What about that cringe factor, though?
‘‘I hear what you’re saying but think about what events do for a city, what they do for a community,’’ Falwasser says. ‘‘You think about the benefits for a place like Christchurch. An ability to get out and celebrate together and engage with each other.
‘‘We talk about major events amplifying the spirit of our people. It puts joy on your face. We’re seeing that in Dunedin. The whole city gets behind it and the whole city reaps the rewards, whether they be social or economic.’’
Or take the recent Lantern Festival in Christchurch. An unexpectedly large crowd of 55,000 squeezed into riverside parks over two nights. That was year one of bringing it back to town. Year two – Falwasser is keen on talking in timeframes and strategies – will see it extend up to Victoria Square. Maybe a business conference could ‘‘leverage’’ off it at some point.
Even those who were struck by the scale of crowds or queued for 30 long minutes to buy noodles admit it felt good to see so many people back in Christchurch.
Crowds were a good problem to have, agrees Johnny Gibson, founder of the Nostalgia Festival. If it is too busy, it can be fixed. If it’s the other way round, then you have problems.
Gibson created the Nostalgia Festival five years ago. As a mix of music and other events, it started small and has grown steadily, drawing 4000 people to Ferrymead Heritage Park this year. While it has council support, it sits outside the infrastructure of ChristchurchNZ.
Gibson agrees that now is the time to start thinking about how to bring events into the city to draw both locals and visitors.
‘‘A big issue I see is locals championing the city,’’ he says. ‘‘We’re post-earthquake and post that Gap Filler stage and we don’t really have our identity down. Events might be a good way to help with that and champion the city. We’re still a bit confused about what our identity is and how we talk about ourselves.’’
Gibson is also co-owner of the Neat Places website and app that curates – our word, not his – the city’s new and interesting places.
‘‘It’s only been in the past six months that you would actually have people around you as you crossed the road at one of the key city traffic lights. That’s how I gauge the city. How many people are crossing at, say, the corner of High St and Manchester St?’’
So what does Christchurch need, in Gibson’s view? ‘‘We have to create something that’s really desirable, that’s unique to Christchurch and can only be experienced here.’’
That tall order is the job of Falwasser and her offsiders, who wield strategy plans and documents in the inner-city boardroom of ChristchurchNZ. It is probably too easy and not really fair to be cynical about marketing and its buzzwords – innovation, ambition, ‘‘igniting excitement’’ and so on – but what happened to a band just putting on a concert and people just going? To a team just playing a game of rugby?
Now there is an entire economy built on spectacles, feeding an infrastructure of tourism promoters, hotel owners and restaurants. There is enormous pressure for everything to work. Behind that, there may be recognition that much of the Christchurch rebuild was structured around a perceived need for big things: a big convention centre, a big stadium, a big metro sports centre.
‘‘The stadium is urgent,’’ Falwasser says. ‘‘We’re assessing events that could be three, five, seven years away. At the moment, Christchurch is losing opportunities because we do not have the capacity.’’
Similarly, Christchurch has had to pass on future swimming events because there is no certainty around the metro sports centre. The convention centre, on the other hand, is going well as ‘‘successful bids are being won almost on a weekly basis’’.
But the stadium seems to stir opinions the most. An expensive covered stadium is vital if we are to get future Sheerans to Christchurch and paint our town Ed. The argument goes that without it, we fall off the touring circuit.
Bruce Springsteen brought an estimated $10m into Christchurch in 2017. Like music, sport generates dollars: the British and Irish Lions were worth $8.3m to Christchurch in 2017. But Christchurch misses out on All Blacks tests in 2018 and 2019, with Nelson making a successful bid for the test against Argentina.
‘‘Why is a city like Nelson doing that?’’ Falwasser asks. ‘‘Attracting major events is an arms race. You are competing against other countries, other cities.’’
Stuff reported that the Nelson bid was a collaboration between the Tasman Rugby Union, the Nelson Regional Development Agency, Nelson City Council and private sector funding. Trafalgar Park will triple its seating capacity for Argentina in September 2018.
Beaten by Dunedin, beaten by Nelson? The need could not be more urgent. At this rate, Timaru and Ashburton will soon be attracting bigger events than Christchurch.
So you need ‘‘a war chest’’, Falwasser says. This is why ChristchurchNZ has submitted to the Christchurch City Council’s long term plan for an additional $1.4m. Of that sum, $750,000 would be a seed fund for major events, ‘‘to allow us some flexibility to be competitive and bid’’. The remainder would pay for business events, international education and the creation of a film office to draw movie productions to Christchurch.
A film office? We have locations but not an industry. The film industry was reportedly worth $3.2 billion in 2016, but only 3 percent of it came to the South Island.
In reality, ChristchurchNZ is tasked with nothing less than trying to invent an entirely new narrative of the city. Which is what?
‘‘The new narrative is shaping out to be the city of opportunity that explores new things,’’ Falwasser says. ‘‘A tried and true city of pushing the boundaries. A test-bed city that wants to be at the cutting edge.’’
But if you were to glance at the ChristchurchNZ website, you would get a different sense altogether. The next big event is the Golden Oldies sporting tournament, launching on Easter Sunday. Overall, Christchurch looks outdoorsy, sporty, just a bit conservative.
‘‘We wouldn’t disagree with you. Without a doubt, the programme needs to be more diverse.’’
The plan is to have four ‘‘anchor events’’ at different points throughout the year. Two have been inherited from the council: the World Buskers Festival and Cup and Show Week. A food event might be a third choice as Christchurch seems to go for that.
Some of this is already happening in Christchurch. The private operator Team Event has put thousands of people through major music events like Electric Avenue and beer, wine and food festivals.
‘‘I think their offering is great,’’ Falwasser says. (Team Event was approached to comment for this story.)
The first public test of ChristchurchNZ’s thinking around events will come in its review of the popular but threatened World Buskers Festival. Now 25 years old, the festival made a
‘‘Attracting major events is an arms race. You are competing against other countries, other cities.’’
Linda Falwasser, general manger of attraction at ChristchurchNZ
‘‘We’re post-earthquake and post that Gap Filler stage and we don’t really have our identity down.’’ Johnny Gibson, founder of the Nostalgia Festival
deficit in 2016 and 2017, so the 2018 festival was crucial.
‘‘It is a much loved festival and has grassroots in Christchurch, but it needs to evolve. We’ve looked at the city narrative we want to create and the diversity that Christchurch has. That event is going to innovate, reshape and be quite inclusive.’’
Comedy and busking will only be part of the Boulevard of Outrageous Delights – a working title, Falwasser stresses – planned for January 2019. There will be music, food and other kinds of performance.
Yes, ChristchurchNZ has heard the negative feedback – ‘‘We don’t tread on this lightly,’’ Falwasser says – and while people in Christchurch love the festival, ‘‘I’m sure everyone would agree they would love an event that is sustainable, where ratepayer funds don’t continually have to top this event up’’.
Speaking of narratives, there was a story that Christchurch people rallied round and made the 2018 festival a financial success. The outgoing festival director claimed it produced a $150,000 surplus.
When the festival circulated that figure, Falwasser said that accounts had not been finalised. And now she says it looks like the festival actually produced a deficit of around $33,000, which means it requires another ratepayer bail out. (The festival dtriuresct tcoorndfirsmpustes this accounting).
‘‘There is misinformation out there about the event. The model is not sustainable.’’
The new model will either be the Boulevard or a much smaller community event. The upgraded, Boulevard version would need major sponsors to come onboard.
‘‘Outrageous Delights goes back to our bold vision for Christchurch about igniting excitement and being bold and ambitious.’’
But defenders of the old model attacked the name, partly because it seemed derivative of Adelaide’s highly successful Garden of Unearthly Delights.
‘‘You could probably say that the ‘delights’ word is similar, but I don’t think there’s a direct comparison,’’ Falwasser says. ‘‘We’ve researched quite a number of festivals around the world.’’
What does the Nostalgia Festival’s Johnny Gibson make of the possible relaunch?
‘‘I think they’re right in a way, looking at reshaping the event and modernising it, because obviously things have changed a lot. I don’t think there’s a right answer in the short term for that event. It’s still really hard to get people out of the house. Christchurch is notorious for it.’’
Proposals will come in after Easter and then new contractors will have the ambitious task of getting a new festival on in nine months. The aim of year one is to make a great event. Year two: attract Australians. Year three: be a well-oiled machine the world knows about.
But for ChristchurchNZ, there is still a bigger mountain to climb. The council did not just want the World Buskers Festival reviewed – it also wanted Cup and Show Week reviewed. Cup and Show Week? If anything is iconic in Christchurch it is that. Forget the cathedrals, this is as close as we get to something sacred. Who dares tamper with it?
‘‘I’m not saying now what the outcome of that might be,’’ Falwasser says. ‘‘It is sacred. It is an iconic event. But is there an ability to enhance it and attract visitors as well?’’