Editorial: Mission hit by wealth of options

Ronan Keating was a huge hit at the Mission Concert. Photo/Warren Buckland

It has been an action-packed weekend.

Hot on the heels of the Wellington Sevens, the Black Caps continued to labour through the second and final test match against India at the Basin Reserve in Wellington while 15,000 people packed out the nearby waterfront for Homegrown.

The inaugural Auckland Nines tournament was held at Eden Park in Auckland through Saturday and yesterday and will remain an annual fixture for the City of Sails for the foreseeable future.

Nearby, 55,000 people packed into Western Springs to see rapper Eminem's first New Zealand show. Adding to that was the Auckland Lantern Festival and Splore Festival at Tapapakanga Regional Park.

Sol3 Mio performed at Black Barn in Havelock North and in Napier there was our annual Mission Concert.

With such a wealth of options for North Island event-goers, I'm not surprised no more than 12,000 people turned up to see the British and Irish acts we hosted this year.

Unlike what some others have suggested, I think the acts were of good enough quality and standing to draw in the crowds of previous years.

The appeal of the annual Mission Concert lies not just in the stars who are performing, but also in the setting, venue and its reputation.

One of the problems faced this year must surely have been the congested weekend it landed on and the subsequent battle for the attentions of its usual out-of-town punters.