Strong wind predictions cause more fire concerns for Los Angeles and firefighters are expected to be battling Coromandel vegetation fire for several days. Video / NZ Herald, AFP
Because it is what interested adults will get when they roll up to watch kids aged 7 to 14 run and jump and throw their way to glory at the South Island Colgate Games in Christchurch starting on Friday.
Our family decided to head along to the North Island version of the games in Hastings on Saturday to encourage my two girls to kick their “Bluey” obsessions to the kerb.
I was there in the stand at the $25 million ratepayer-funded Mitre 10 Park with roughly 1000 others on a coolish day. Organisers say they got similar crowds across each of the three days the event ran.
The crowd at the Colgate Games in Hastings on Saturday. Photo / Chris Hyde
What I didn’t contemplate beforehand was that there would be an entry fee for the pleasure of watching 7-year-old sprint races, so I was taken aback when the attendant told me it would be $8.50 per adult to get in.
Child spectators were free, she told me mercifully.
The attendant then promptly added a $2.90 service fee to each ticket - not each transaction - with no particular reason given for why, charging us a total of $22.80 for two adults.
I debated not paying, but we’d already turned up and found a park, and the kids were excited about being at a “stadium”. I asked to pay cash to avoid the service fee. No again.
Athletes in action at the Colgate Games in Hastings - the hurdles we jump to watch kids' sport are getting higher. Photo / Michael Dawson - Athletics NZ
The gritted teeth through which I paid for those tickets would later need some extra toothpaste to dull the pain.
Once inside, I got what I wanted. The kids watched the races, the celebrations and the medals being given out and as we went home an hour later, one of them asked me if I could take her to the track next week to practise her sprinting. Tick.
I can’t hold back the tide, but I don’t want the ticketing of kids’ sporting events in New Zealand to become a regular thing.
It strikes me as a form of double or triple dipping.
Here’s where the threshold should lie:
- It’s reasonable to pay to watch professional athletes
- It’s not reasonable to pay to watch athletes - especially kids - who have paid to be a part of the competition.
God forbid I was a parent who had already paid the entry fees for my kid to enter each event, travelled down from a far-flung corner of the North Island, paid for accommodation for three nights, and then as I pulled in to watch it unfold, find I’m being clipped for even more.
Athletics NZ, which runs the Colgate Games, says the spectator fee keeps the 47-year-old kids’ event sustainable and memorable and helps keep entry fees lower than $10 (it’s $9.50 for a child to enter each one of the hundreds of races across the three days).
Athletes competing at the Colgate North Island Games at Hastings' Mitre 10 Park. Photo / Michael Dawson - Athletics NZ
While it asks for volunteers to run the event, it says the overall costs of the games are “significant”.
It says its costs include hiring the event venue - Mitre 10 Park in Hastings and Ngā Puna Wai Sports Hub in Wigram - as well as insurance, health and safety, staff, marketing and paying for officials’ accommodation, catering, and expenses.
What Athletics NZ can’t say is what Colgate contributes towards those expenses as the sponsor.
It certainly puts its brand all over the track and field.
