Town centre awash with tulips is aim

This year's festival will be bigger and better, organisers say. Photo / File

Aiming to build on the success of the inaugural event last September, the Rotorua Tulip Fest committee is planning on "digging deeper" to get more businesses and community "buy in" for this year's festival.

Rotorua's spring celebration involves 40,000 tulips, so the Rotorua Lakes Council nursery has ordered additional tulip bulbs to tie in with this year's event, which will run from October 2 to 11. The extra bulbs are being offered to inner-city retailers, cafes, offices and business at cost price to encourage them to get behind the festival.

Inner City Focus Group spokesman Mike Steiner said the initiative for the festival sprang from Rotorua's Inner City Focus Group, with a Tulip Fest committee set up to bring the idea to fruition.

"Given the short lead-in time, we had to pull a new event together and the fact that the tulips didn't actually co-operate last year, we were happy with how the festival came together and the positive comments we received," Mr Steiner said.

"The feedback was that we needed to extend the original two-day festival as well as move it back to ensure the council's wonderful showcase of tulips took centre stage.

"The anticipated 10-day festival will not only build in a little leeway for the tulips to be at their peak, but also allow additional activities to be added to the programme as well as garnering more ... engagement from the likes of schools, businesses, voluntary organisations, and creative groups."

Mr Steiner said the committee wanted every inner-city retailer and business to buy bulbs, pot them up at home before June 10, and have them blooming in and around their premises in festival week.

"Imagine the CBD awash with tulips in windows, on cafe tables, sitting at reception desks, in doorways and in planter boxes on footpaths; in fact everywhere locals and visitors looked."

Businesses can order bulbs from Rotorua Lakes Council project manager Brigitte Nelson at brigitte.nelson@rdc.govt.nz. Packs, costing $5 for seven or $20 for 30, come with planting and care instructions and must be ordered before May 27. They can be picked up from the council nursery from May 25.

The first 10 responders will receive 10 free additional bulbs. The nursery has also put up a $200 nursery voucher for the Best Dressed Business during Rotorua Tulip Fest 2015.