King Street Live up for supreme gong

CROWNING GLORY: Alan Maxwell, manager of King Street Live, has been named one of four national finalists in the 2013 NZHA Best Music Entertainment Venue of the Year Award. PHOTO/LYNDA FERINGA

King Street Live in Masterton has won a national finalist berth in the 2013 New Zealand Hospitality Association Excellence Awards for the Best Music Entertainment Venue in the country.

Warren Maxwell, Featherston musician and Stone Feather Studios owner, last year joined forces with Masterton businessman Carl Schdroski to open the King St venue, which opened on May 9 as the first licensed venue in Wairarapa dedicated to live acts and events.

Double platinum-selling soloist Tiki Taane opened the venue and a number of Wairarapa and national acts have followed including Dave Dobbyn, The Warratahs, Lakota & The Voyagers, The Adults, Shogun Orchestra, Back To The Remedy, and Brockaflowersaurus-Rex & The Blueberry Biscuits.

Alan Maxwell, King Street Live manager, said being named as one of four national finalists in the music entertainment category after opening only three months ago was a significant honour for the business and its owners and employees.

He said King Street Live would, if crowned, gather even more mana and "credibility" among live performers in the Kiwi entertainment industry and the music fraternity throughout New Zealand.

Other finalists in the category include the Agenda Restaurant and Nightclub in Hamilton, and Auckland bars Studio the Venue, which won the award last year, and The Riverhead.

Mr Maxwell said the association representative who visited King Street Live as part of the awards selection had been "blown away by the buzz" generated that night.

"We were told we were unique and it was like the music entertainment category of the awards was made for us. That makes complete sense because the whole concept of King Street Live was geared for the acoustics, the artists and the audience," Mr Maxwell said.

"Right from the start it was about the entertainment, not the bar, not the seating, not the food. It was all about the music."

The 2013 awards will be presented at a formal dinner at the Millennium Hotel in Queenstown on September 26.

Mr Maxwell said he also had been named as one of two association members nationwide who had won free travel and accommodation to the Queenstown awards ceremony but his individual win was "bittersweet", as he would miss his brother Warren playing at King Street Live that same night in his critically-acclaimed band Trinity Roots.