Wellington Mayor Kerry Prendergast has rebuffed claims her city council has abandoned the Cuba Street carnival in favour of funding community events around next year's Rugby World Cup.
The carnival, Wellington's hugely popular biennial street party, has been axed next year and its future remains uncertain amid funding woes, with organiser Chris Morley-Hall blaming Wellington City Council.
"They are unable to commit to even a low-level of recurrent funding. And it's just too difficult for us to continue with that not knowing," he told The Dominion Post.
The council was instead spending its money on Rugby World Cup events, he said.
But Ms Prendergast said today that was not the case.
"The council has been working with the Cuba Street Carnival and Fringe Arts trusts since last year on forming a new trust focused on delivering and developing events for emerging artists in Wellington," she said.
It committed $75,000 towards helping set up the trust and had not received any formal funding request for next year's Cuba St carnival.
"We have always been supportive of the Cuba St Carnival and contributed approximately $300,000 last year."
It has been reported that Mr Morley-Hall asked for $500,000 from the council for next year's carnival, but Ms Prendergast said that figure included a much wider range of events than the council and Cuba St Carnival Collective Trust had been discussing.
"The Rugby World Cup has been budgeted completely separately from community events and major events. It is absolutely not drawing council funding from any other events in the city," she said.
Last year's carnival drew a record 150,000 people and was called an "internationally-recognised Mardi Gras" by Ms Prendergast.
Nick Simcock, chairman of the Cuba St Carnival Collective, said a decision was made at the last board meeting that it was not feasible for the new trust to run an event of the Cuba carnival's scale in its first year of operation.
"We think it is in the best interest of Wellington City, the performers and the 150,000 carnival attendees for us to plan for a successful carnival in the longer term rather than compromise its authenticity because we have committed to an unrealistic timeframe in a very difficult financial environment."
