Palmerston North City councillor Rachel Bowen.
THREE KEY FACTS:
- Rachel Bowen is an elected member of Palmerston North City Council
OPINION
October is Major Events month in Palmy, bringing some much-needed revenue to our hotels and motels, hospitality providers, and retailers and kick-starting the summer events season.
The city council supports local events in many ways, but for events that showcase Palmerston North as a destination, increase city visitation, and generate positive exposure that makes our residents #PalmyProud we can allocate ratepayer funding via our Major Events Fund.
We measure this economic impact by analysing data that tells us where people have come from, how long they stayed in the city, and what they spent while they were here.
This funding attracts events to Palmerston North, enables them to grow, and helps to make sure there’s lots going on here.
Palmy DragFest started the month with five days of sold-out shows, New Zealand’s only Rainbow Fair, and an enormous party on Saturday night where 1350 people headed to the Regent on Broadway and thronged our central city bars and restaurants.
We expect this event to generate $860,000 of economic impact against a $30,000 investment by the city.
October 12 and 13 brings us Art Trail Manawatū. With over 100 artists in 26 locations across the city and region, there’s a diverse and exciting range of works for visitors and locals alike to enjoy.
All trail events are free of charge and supported by funding from Palmerston North City, and Manawatū and Rangitīkei District Councils. PNCC provides $20,000 funding, and the event returned $284,000 in economic impact for the city last year.
Salud! - ‘the bougiest garden party the Manawatū has ever seen’ – will be held on October 19 at Awapuni Racecourse and promises to be a great day out. It showed real potential to attract visitors last year and so attracted $20,000 of funding in the expectation of a $220,000 return to the city.
National Young Performer Awards hit the city for Labour weekend, bringing in hundreds of people to compete, support and celebrate the nation’s best young individual ballet and tap dancers, vocal performers and pianists, as well as the team “troupes” competition which sees groups of up to 50 dancers perform together, in different styles of dance.
The 4-day event uses venues across the city, with the finals held at Regent on Broadway on Friday afternoon for Troupes, and on Sunday night for the individual awards. This event receives $24,000 a year in funding and returns $1.2m to the city in economic impact.
As a community, we get great return on the investment of public money into these events.
It not only goes to create an exciting and vibrant city for locals, but it also provides much-needed support to the event sector, and our city businesses.
I think that’s money well spent.
On average, 18 people die every year in recreational craft incidents in New Zealand.