Friday’s announcement by Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern that New Zealand will stay at Covid Alert Level 2 until at least September 16 will not halt preparations for the long-running festival, which has run in Alexandra since 1957.
He encouraged local groups who were busy preparing their floats and shopping trolley "florreys" to keep working on them, and he was "cautiously optimistic" the festival would still go ahead on September 25-27.
The festival committee and principal sponsor Contact Energy had supported continuing preparations, he said.
"We are taking a business-as-usual approach and will revisit the situation on Monday the 14th" when Cabinet would consider the alert level, Mr McPherson said.
Ticket sales and distribution of the event calendar would be held off until September 15, but all was ready for a fast turnaround.
Floats were being built, princesses had bought frocks, and "I don’t want to disappoint the community and everyone who has committed to this, and I believe that we can pull it off", Mr McPherson said.
