Parade repeat ruled out

Organisers of Dunedin's ethereal lantern parade are ruling out restaging the event during next year's Rugby World Cup, fearing a repeat performance "just to impress the tourists" could undermine the event's integrity.

The procession was the highlight of the city's annual Midwinter Carnival, supported by funding from the Dunedin City Council and other organisations, and last year drew a crowd of 10,000 people to the Octagon.

However, Dunedin Midwinter Celebrations Trust chairwoman Juliet Novena Sorrel said yesterday the lantern parade was "exclusive" to the carnival, and staging it during the rugby tournament risked exhausting volunteers and undermining the event's integrity.

"We do get requests to borrow our staff or do it somewhere else, but we don't take it up because we are protecting the integrity of our event.

"We have got a loyalty to our audience and we spent over a decade building that up as a tradition. We are definitely not going to undermine that just to impress the tourists," she said.

The lantern parade was mentioned by council marketing and communications manager Debra Simes earlier this week as an example of the kind of event that could be restaged in Dunedin as part of a national cultural festival timed to coincide with the tournament.

That followed last week's announcement by Rugby World Cup Minister Murray McCully a $9.5 million lottery fund was available for organisers planning community events for the tournament.

Ms Novena Sorrel said she had not discussed the idea of restaging the lantern parade with the council, and had been surprised to see it mentioned.

However, she believed the rugby tournament and the crowds it was expected to draw to Dunedin provided an "amazing opportunity", and the trust was "seriously considering" a new one-off event instead.

Details were not yet finalised, and staging an event would depend on success in attracting a slice of the $9.5 million lotteries fund, but the trust was "thinking big", she said.

"We would probably need hundreds of people to participate, because it needs to be a big thing - visually big.

"It's an amazing opportunity and it will be a one-off and we are not going to turn that down just because we think our event is more important. We are just saying we will be doing something different."

Any new event could even feature lanterns and a procession, "but we wouldn't replicate what we do in the carnival".

More details would be available later this month, once a proposal - or several ideas - were finalised and discussed with the council, she said.

- chris.morris@odt.co.nz