A drive-through vaccination centre will be held in Invercargill this weekend in an effort to drive up vaccination rates.
ILT Stadium Southland general manager and Invercargill city councillor Nigel Skelt is collaborating with Awarua Whanau Services to bring the service to the facility on Saturday to make the process easier for the community.
"With the Santa Parade on Saturday, when people will be out and about, we thought it was a huge opportunity.
"We are encouraging anyone to take their first, second jab or whatever to see if we can increase the vaccination rates, as it is incredibly important."
Ministry of Health data shows Invercargill has 88.2% of its population over the age of 12 double-vaccinated.
Mr Skelt said vaccination was paramount for the events industry and the community to return to its new kind of normal.
Many events have had to be cancelled due to the Covid-19 Delta outbreak and Government rules around gatherings.
Mr Skelt believed those cancellations would have a huge financial impact for the region.
"We are still working through to understand how the stadium will work under these traffic light guidelines, but certainly people will need to be fully vaccinated to go to events.
"No doubt about that because it will be mandated by the Government anyway so it is extremely important from a Southland [business] perspective to have as many people vaccinated as we can to protect our community."
The drive-in vaccination clinic will be held from 10am-5pm on Saturday at the ILT Stadium Southland car park.
