Stadium stands up to riot of colour

Forsyth Barr Stadium chief executive David Davies and Dunedin Fringe Festival director Paul Smith create a splash at the stadium yesterday. Photo by Craig Baxter.
Forsyth Barr Stadium chief executive David Davies and Dunedin Fringe Festival director Paul Smith create a splash at the stadium yesterday. Photo by Craig Baxter.
Work started on painting Otago's $200 million Forsyth Barr Stadium yesterday. And, surprisingly, red and black were the most popular colour choices for the new home of Otago rugby.

Stadium chief executive David Davies was particularly enthusiastic about red and black paint, during a colourful, and unconventional, paint-bombing test on the stadium fence.

"This is the most enjoyable 10 minutes I've had in a long time," Mr Davies grinned. "It's very carthartic. It's a good way to work the stress out."

The paint-bombing was an experiment ahead of the 2010 Dunedin Fringe Festival, festival director Paul Smith said.

The Fringe will be launched in the Octagon next Thursday, when people involved in the Dunedin art community will create a 3.6m by 2.4m artwork by peppering a canvas with the paint balloons.

"We wanted to test out the paint bombs first, to make sure that they would work properly," Mr Smith said.

The paint bombs were made by injecting paint into water balloons with a horse syringe. And, on a day of colour, there was also some inevitable red tape to deal with.

"We had to sign a resource consent to come here and do this."

Mr Davies said he was looking forward to his first Dunedin Fringe Festival, which starts next Thursday.

"Comedy has always kept me engrossed, so I'll definitely be there."

The 2010 Dunedin Fringe Festival runs from March 18 to 28.

 

Your confidence with our money is heartwarming

When will Mikenette and supporters demand that the stadium be made privately funded instead of rates funded? He is strangely silent on this pertinent aspect of the stadium. Mikenette believes the stadium will be a success so many wealthy businesspeople will be hankering for a piece of the profitable stadium pie. So, easy to make the stadium privately funded. It's a win/win situation for all. Unless you are part of the ORFU who may have to work a wee bit harder to make profit, but surely if rugby and the stadium are going to be so successfull (as mikenette tells us) this will be not too difficult.

Deficit thinking

With respect it's the council that's been engaging in a "riot of deficit thinking" - $365m of deficit over the next 20 years - if I was saving up for a new car I'd do exactly that - save up for it, not go out and borrow the lot - I'd end up paying as much in interest as I would for the car. On the other hand if I had a bit of self discipline and restraint and saved up for the car, not only would I end up spending far less but I'd also earn a bit of interest myself along the way.

Well the same goes for stadiums - if we'd decided we needed a stadium and then planned ahead to put some money aside every year we would be saving $100m in interest. Now let me suggest we start saving up for the $1billion we're going to need to replace out water system over the next 20 years so that we don't end up spending another billion in financing - the problem is that the council can't because they're too stretched already paying for your stadium.

Riot of deficit thinking

Ian needs to cancel his ODT subscription, throw out his TV and radio and expect a continuous stream of positive news items about the stadium during the rest of his life. Worse for Ian and his deficit minded ilk much will be shouting its praises. Hold on for the ride.

It's news ...

The fact that Mr Davies has chosen to decorate the stadium in Canterbury's colours is surely news .....

right arm over

Good arm tho . . .

Is this news?

Is the spectacle of two people lobbing paint-bombs at the Stadium fence, in yet another splurge of hammed-up 'pro-stadium' publicity, really a newsworthy event?  If there happens to be no 'real' news, at least you could spare us stuff like this.

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