A festival's worth

The people of Alexandra certainly need to make their views heard at Wednesday's public meeting to discuss the future of the blossom festival, since the festival is inextricably linked with them, their town, the industry with which the area is associated in the minds of most New Zealanders, and the celebration of the arrival of spring in Central Otago.

Many Otago residents will hope they will decide the festival should continue.

It has been a remarkable community event for more than half a century and attracts many thousands of visitors each year.

Whereas every town in the country seems to have a festival of one kind or another these days, none can match the record of Alexandra, or the special local nature of its traditional event.

And "tradition" should be the focus of attempts to revive it.

The fact that the festival organisation is insolvent is serious enough, of course, but it is not excessively so; nor should its financial situation be used as a reason to abandon all efforts at recovery.

As has been observed, the patient is capable of resuscitation.

A public appeal ought to be successful in erasing the debts but that will only happen if the residents of the region can be convinced that a revived festival is both possible and practical, and a reinvigorated, energetic and hard-working committee of volunteers can be found to focus on developing its character.

The experiences of the organisation in the recent past ought to provide a salutary guide to what can be successful - and what cannot or is overambitious.

There is little purpose in seeking causes or individuals to blame for the situation the festival finds itself in.

It seems reasonable to suppose it grew, like Topsy, somewhat beyond the resources available to realistically run it and pay for it.

That implies a need for a return to a basis of core events and a careful rebuilding, taking into account what visitors to the area appear to desire, what is working in other towns holding similar events - and what is not.

It seems obvious the cost of contracting professional event management cannot be sustained and the hiring of professional entertainers needs to be seriously reconsidered, at least until the festival gets back into surplus.

Some concerns have been raised about why the Blossom Festival Trust's funds could not be used to clear some or all of the festival's debts, but the requisite clause in the trust deed has a specific weather-related purpose.

However, the question needs to be addressed as to what would happen to these substantial funds were the festival to collapse for want of support.

The involvement of community groups looking to raise funds with stalls and the like should be encouraged and there is no reason why they should not contribute to the festival's costs.

The festival has grown to include many "supporting events" which benefit, including a festival queen competition, pipe band contest, musical society programmes, festival golf tournament, book sale, art and craft exhibitions and motoring competitions.

All these activities need to be reconsidered, as well as the possibility of extending the catchment of the festival to include the Alexandra-Clyde-Cromwell-Ranfurly area.

It is excellent that several worthwhile suggestions have already been offered, including the need for the festival to have a specific fundraising focus and to retain the traditional and popular float parade as the key event.

It may well be that a week or two-week-long festival is no longer appropriate, being too difficult and expensive to sustain, and that one where most activities occur on one or two days or over a long weekend is the better option.

The matter of the correct timing of the event to coincide with the arrival of at least some fruit tree blossom may need to be reconsidered.

The Vincent Community Board quite rightly will need to be convinced of public support and local enthusiasm for the festival's continuance before offering more funding.

The crisis facing the future of the festival presents not the ending of a grand tradition but an opportunity to the Alexandra community to rethink the event, return to the core basis of its successful years, ensure funding support is adequate and is administered at arm's-length from the working committee, and to build further one of the country's longest-established community events.