The council’s economic development and marketing agency, Enterprise Dunedin, yesterday confirmed it expected to spend the sum on events timed to coincide with the UK singer’s three Dunedin concerts.
That included paying $8350 for a painted mural of the singer, to be added to a Bath St wall by city artist Tyler Kennedy Stent over the next week.
A post from Tyler Kennedy Stent's Instagram page
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The cost of the mural came under fire yesterday, including from Breakfast television presenter Hayley Holt, who told viewers the mural would "stop me from going to Dunedin".
Mr Christie said people were "entitled to their opinion", but his focus was on making the most of a significant economic and marketing opportunity for the city.
With an estimated 100,000 fans expected to visit Dunedin for the concerts, more than $34 million was expected to be pumped into the local economy, Mr Christie said. Enterprise Dunedin had paid for the Sheeran mural from its marketing budget, as part of efforts to promote the city through social media, he said.
The city’s developing street art scene was already enjoying international media exposure, and it was hoped the Sheeran mural would tap into that. But it was only part of a programme designed to bring the city together for a "tremendous" series of concerts, that would be "as big, if not bigger" for the city than the 2011 Rugby World Cup, he said.
"This is no different to a lot of those major events. We just want to make sure we’re doing it really well.
"It’s not just a one-off concert. In itself, each of those is the biggest concert we’ve had, at 40,000 people, so it is a significant series of events over that weekend, for which we want to make sure the city is well prepared."
Other activities included a 1100-strong kids’ ukulele jam and paint-by-numbers’ community mural in the Octagon, an Autumn Lights lantern installation in the Athenaeum, and more live music performances.
The Octagon would also be car-free for six days, creating a family-friendly pedestrian hub. A "walking bus" would run from there to the stadium for each concert.
Other costs could come from decorating the city, traffic management and health and safety costs, he said.
Mr Christie was surprised at how polarising the mural was proving to be, but said it would be "relatively small" and not necessarily permanent.
"It’s a marketing tool, not necessarily a long-term permanent street art piece for the city."
Sheeran: Not everyone likes me
In an interview with Television New Zealand's Seven Sharp last night, Sheeran said he could understand why the mural might annoy people.
"I saw they're doing some sort of mural and it's pissing people off," he said. "It's up to them, I'm sure if it was my hometown and I had someone coming that I like I might do the same.
"I'm sure not everyone in New Zealand likes me, so of course some people are going to be like 'that's a bad idea'," he said.
However, the singer said he was not letting it get him down.
"The older I get the less I care about people's opinions, I never meet these people and when I do they're always super polite and nice."
