Wanganui's Friends of the Opera House have been forced to borrow $35,000 to replace a sound system rendered unusable by the Government's sale of a radio frequency.
Friends president Fred Holmes appeared on television's Fair Go consumer show on Wednesday to talk about their "very annoying and frustrating" situation.
The Royal Wanganui Opera House has 12 wireless or radio microphones, each connected to a transmitter and a receiver. They are provided by the Friends, a voluntary group.
The sound equipment, which amplifies the voices of singers and actors, uses the 700MHz frequency and cannot be tuned to any other.
However, the Government has now sold that frequency to providers of 4G mobile broadband, and from next Wednesday no one other than 4G customers will be allowed to use it.