Murihiku Matariki Whanau festival co-ordinator Sharne Parkinson was resolute in her decision to move the annual celebration event indoors to the stadium, even though some had doubted the decision.
The celebrations had always been popular, gathering tens of thousands of visitors each year, she said.
"We’ve always had massive, massive crowds to our events ... We’re expecting the biggest crowds the stadium’s ever seen. So there’d be 15,000 a night easily."
Winter weather did not influence the decision to move, as the celebrations had never been marred by rain in Invercargill.
"We’ve been very blessed in the past five years. The weather’s been phenomenal," she said.
"Even last year, where it rained for two weeks solid ... the rain stopped at 5 o'clock and didn't start again until our thing was done."
A low-sensory night, with dialled-back visual and audio, launched celebrations at Friday’s invitation-only event.
"Elderly and people that don’t like loud, big, booming noises; everything is turned down."
Kapa haka performances, story-telling and interactive workshops continued on Saturday and Sunday when performers Aro also hosted workshops.
"Usually you bring the whole whanau, and [Aro] get up and teach waiata a ringa — the actions that go with the song. Then at the show, you get up on stage and do the actions that you learn."
Invited guest Chris Bain-Clark thought it was important to be able to bring the children along to the event.
"It's Manawatia (welcome) a Matariki, which is, whakanuia i te tau hou (celebrate the new year).
"I think it's best to celebrate both as we live in a both sort of world.
"But for us especially, we practise our Maoritanga daily. For me and my family, it’s a thing.
"So to see a display like this, it’s amazing."
While Matariki was a new celebration, he believed it was a celebration for everyone.
"I think it can bring us all together as one and realise, when we’re all having fun, we’re all laughing the same, all breathing he same air and we can do it in places like this, it will bring us together more as one, I feel."
Ms Parkinson said the celebrations have had "epic" support over the past five years, since Matariki was first introduced as a national holiday.
"It’s now finally getting to the stage where we want it to be because we want to start asking our community to have more Pasifika-Maori productions and this is the pathway to allow that to happen."
The stadium hosted cultural entertainment and the adjoining velodrome hosted kai trucks, stalls and exhibitions.
Set-up had gone relatively smoothly. A crew worked from 8am on Tuesday morning to Thursday evening to transform the stadium.
After the event finished on Sunday evening, the stadium was transformed again to host the Southern Steel game on Monday evening.
- By Toni McDonald
