The New Zealand Historic Places Trust (NZHPT) has announced
the Harvest Home event, held annually at Totara Estate south
of Oamaru since 2004, will not be held this year as it is not
economically viable.
NZHPT heritage destinations manager Paul McGahan said his
organisation could no longer afford to absorb the costs of
running the event, which had only once returned a profit.
"Unfortunately it's the reality of the current economic
environment," he said.
"Getting sponsorship has been challenging and it has come to
the point where we have had to give financial priority to
other areas such as property maintenance and addressing
increased insurance costs."
Mr McGahan said he preferred not to publicly divulge the
extent of the losses, which were in the "lower end of the
thousands", and added the trust's budget had not increased in
the past three years.
Harvest Home had been held in high regard by the wider
community that visited Totara Estate, 8km south of Oamaru,
and also Clark's Flour Mill, he said.
"As part of that visitor experience to these fantastic
heritage places, the NZHPT was happy to make a day for the
family to be able to enjoy. With acts like the Topp Twins and
Tami Neilson in recent years, it really made for a fun day
out."
Mr McGahan stressed the trust was putting the initiative on
hold, and the event would be "quite easy to resurrect".
- ben.guild@odt.co.nz
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