Rich event fails to connect

Queen St shows little indication that the festival is even on. Photo / Dean Purcell

A tourist from Sheffield marooned in Auckland because of his cruise ship's propeller problems said he felt lucky to have been stuck here while the Auckland Festival was on.

But how did he know the festival was on? As we progress into its second and final week, it's a disheartening exercise to walk along Queen St at lunchtime towards the festival's "hub", the Red Square, in Aotea Square.

Instead of our main drag being festooned with festival banners, it is dominated by banners for My Fair Lady, an upcoming Australian production with a whopping great marketing budget. A few Auckland Festival banners hang between Victoria St and Wellesley St but none, bizarrely, directly outside Red Square.

In other cities that stage arts festivals supported by ratepayers' money, councils plaster the streets with banners, posters and "ambassadors" to make sure everyone - citizens and visitors alike - knows what's on and where. You can't blame the lack of street presence on the festival organisers, who have programmed an extraordinarily diverse and rich event but have little money left over for marketing.

But you would expect core funder Auckland City Council to get in behind the festival that it/we have paid for. That it has allowed the street directly outside Red Square to be draped with My Fair Lady banners is either naive or a disgrace.

Red Square itself needs sorting out, as well. It is poorly signposted, and needs some of those red flags fluttering above the Aotea Centre mirrored along Queen St to give it a punchier profile.

There are lunchtime "In Conversation" events each day inside the famous Spiegeltent, but when we visited just before noon yesterday, there were no signs on the street to publicise that.

The ambience inside the tent was slightly spoiled by the sound of jackhammers drilling in the Aotea Centre carpark renovations. Outside in Red Square a few seagulls wandered around the lonely space.

It may be asking too much of some of the visiting entertainers, but some "excerpted" performances along Queen St at lunchtime would do much to inject some excitement and an awareness that the festival is on.