New outdoor resource on the horizon for the Arts Village

The Arts Village general manager Mary-Beth Acres with a model of the stage. Photo/Ben Fraser

An exciting new resource is on the horizon for the Arts Village, who will be starting a fundraising campaign next month.

The Arts Village is working to raise enough money to get an outdoor modular stage.

Arts Village manager Mary-Beth Acres says the stage will be a two rise, 18m square platform that is locked together when it is installed and can be moved around.

"For us at the Arts Village we have no raised performance space anywhere.

"We've got this amazing outdoor space but it's just grass."

She says it will not be a resource solely for the Arts Village and because it is made to be transportable it can be taken to places such as the Lakefront or the Blue Lake.

"There is no other resource like it locally."

The fundraising campaign to get the stage will run through November and the stage will be launched on January 14.

"We've got music performances, drama workshops, poetry readings and all sorts that are already lined up to use the stage once it is here."

She says the overall cost is $11,000 and the Rotorua Energy Charitable Trust has agreed to match-fund half of that.

This means the Arts Village needs to raise $5500.

Mary-Beth says the crowd-funding campaign will start with a pop-up show at the Village at 5.30pm on Wednesday November 1, with music and poetry performances.

Entry is a gold coin koha to the project.

She says they will have a puppetry video they have made set up which will tell people the story of why the stage is an awesome idea.

They will also be at a couple of the Night Markets on Thursdays.

On November 18 there will be a family art activity day where people can make a donation if they would like, and the art work being created will be used for decoration on the stage building.

She says on December 1 at the 200 Show opening they will do a final push for the campaign.

"It's really exciting. I've just been on a research sabbatical for six months in Japan and Africa.

"This is the first exciting project here that has come out of it and it's something that meets a need we've had for ages.

"We've had really great feedback particularly from people who would make use of it."

Mary-Beth says they are an Arts Village but at the moment it is mostly visual because they haven't had a space for performing arts before.

She says it will create another social space for workshops, korero and kai to take place.

This is also the first time the Rotorua Energy Charitable Trust has worked with a crowd-funding campaign, she says.