Snow Machine’s organiser says the event’s would be more viable if it was staged in Queenstown’s CBD. PHOTO: PAT STEVENSON
Questions over event’s viability; push now on to use Rec Ground
The promoter of Queenstown’s huge Snow Machine music fest admits his event’s at risk of being canned, but claims it’d be more viable if it was staged downtown at the Recreation Ground.
"We’re just in the final stages of seeing whether it’s going to be economically viable for next year", Quentin Nolan says.
This year’s event — said to boost the local economy by about $15million — attracted about 7000 ticket-buyers and was staged for the second year in a paddock in Frankton’s Remarkables Park.
After the inaugural event in 2022, held on the Queenstown Primary School playing field, Nolan tried to use the more suitable Rec Ground, but mayor Glyn Lewers told him it was out of bounds as it needed to be in good nick for the Queenstown Marathon just over two months later.
Nolan says the cost of putting on buses to and from Frankton — most fest-goers stay in central Queenstown accommodation — was about $120,000-$130,000 this September.
Having the event back in town also makes the event "more appealing to people, so you’re going to increase the number of people that want to come", he adds.
"The event is at risk at the moment, so everything we can do will help."
"Over the last month I’ve had a number of businesses, including the Chamber of Commerce, ask me to push to bring it back into town, just because of, I guess, what’s been lost in town, like Luma [light show] cancelling, and it’s been a couple of quiet months.
"I think they felt with it being out at Frankton, some of the benefit’s lost, like they’re not really coming into town to eat before they go to the event.
"They’re not really coming back into town to the extent they were when it was held in town."
Paul Anderson, chief executive of Snow Machine’s skifield partner, NZSki, says: "Look, to make this a viable festival and to keep it for Queenstown, we do need to work with council to find a way to hold this at the Recreation Ground.
"We’ve got the businesses in the CBD missing out on that economic stimulus they badly need — they’ve been hit with everything from Covid to roadworks."
Anderson believes the punters, many from Australia, are a great demographic for Queenstown and the event, falling early September, boosts an otherwise quiet time.
He’s adamant the Rec Ground’s perfect — "there’s really no other good public spaces in town for events of any scale".
Lewers’ argument the marathon organisers need a window in the build-up to their event doesn’t wash with him — "we were actually outside that window, so that reason didn’t make sense to us".
"And the promoter had offered to completely cover the ground [in plastic tiles] the same way they do at concerts at [Auckland’s] Eden Park.
"We’re not asking for any financial contribution from council — quite the opposite, they’ll make something out of allowing the promoter to use that ground."
Asked to comment, Lewers states: "We have an agreement with the marathon that the field doesn’t get used for a certain space of time before the marathon.
"If you look at the [record rain in] September just gone, and this is no fault of Snow Machine, look at the ground after they left.
"They can put in all the mitigation factors they like, but the Rec [Ground] service crew advised me it would be highly unlikely that field would have been usable for the marathon."
Meanwhile, the plug’s already been pulled on another music fest, Bay Dreams South, which debuted in Queenstown in January, at the Events Centre.
