Plans to get festival in the black

A wet, cold New Year's Eve was just one of the problems for organisers of the 2014 Rhythm and...
A wet, cold New Year's Eve was just one of the problems for organisers of the 2014 Rhythm and Alps music festival. PHOTO: MARK PRICE
The new owner of the Cardrona Valley's Rhythm and Alps music festival, Alex Turnbull, has a plan to get the New Year's Eve event back on an even keel.

Step one involves selling 10% of tickets for the next festival before the end of this month.

Step two requires the ''six-figure'' debt from the last festival being paid by the end of July.

And step three will be running a festival in December that not only keeps festival-goers happy but also makes a profit.

Mr Turnbull, originally from Christchurch, has moved to Wanaka to make sure the next festival avoids the problems of the first two.

The first, on Robrosa Station in 2013, sold out but there were some ''quite major operational issues'' including a dozen eftpos terminals that did not work at the festival check-in, Mr Turnbull said.

''So basically there were a lot of queues on the site in 2013 which created a lot of ill-feeling for a lot of people who had paid good money to go to a show.''

There was also some ''interesting local feedback'' about the volume of waste from the site - including thousands of abandoned tents and other pieces of camping equipment.

''So we learnt a lot from our mistakes in 2013, and we put our hand up saying `yep, we got some things wrong, and this is how we are going to fix it'.''

But just 5000 people turned up for the 2014 festival, rather than the 7500 hoped for.

''We knew we were going to take a reduction in ticket sales [after 2013] but we didn't expect it to be that severe.''

The result was a shortfall of ''several hundred thousand dollars'' in revenue.

Before the 2014 event, the artists agreed to reduce their performance fees to give the festival ''some breathing space'', but just under 50 national and local creditors ended up being out of pocket.

However, the creditors had agreed to be paid the money owed by instalments and that was expected to be completed by the end of July, Mr Turnbull said.

Creditors wanted the event to continue ''because there was a real risk of us not running it again''.

Tickets for the next festival went on sale yesterday, and Mr Turnbull expected to sell 10% of them by the end of the month despite the names of the artists not being announced until August.

Mr Turnbull said 80% of the festival's audience was aged between 18 and 28 and they had two main requirements - a ''quality'' international artist and top New Zealand talent.

''So we try to get a mix of the two to keep everyone happy.''

He described setting up the festival as being similar to building a town.

''It's like building a town or a city for 72 hours where everyone needs to use facilities, eat and sleep.

''It's quite an undertaking.''

mark.price@odt.co.nz


Rhythm and Alps Music Festival
Previous owner:
Rhythm and Alps Ltd - shareholders Rhythm Group Entertainment (75%) and Bench Music Ltd (25%).
New owner: Bench Music Ltd (75%) and a Queenstown private equity shareholder (25%).
Sole director and shareholder of Bench Music: Alex Turnbull.

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