Dunedin Mayor Jules Radich is hopeful Dunedin will be able to get some of the money to support the council’s Festivals and Events Plan.
Queenstown Lakes District Mayor Glyn Lewers also expects his area will get some spinoff boost in tourists from major events held elsewhere.
We hope the mayors’ optimism is rewarded, but the emphasis seems to be on Auckland.
There will be a $40 million package to secure large-scale international events from next year and a $10m events boost fund to support existing events and "attract international opportunities", whatever that means.
Tourism and Hospitality Minister Louise Upston, making the announcement, which also included $20m extra tourism funding, said the spending would drive economic activity and confidence across the country.
The announcement comes in the face of noisy gloominess about the state of the Auckland economy, and the events package seems designed to boost confidence there more than other parts of the country.
This was reinforced when, hard on the heels of the events announcement, the government announced a review of the locally set limits around events at Eden Park.
This process for this seems spurious since various government ministers have already expressed their concerns about the constraints, and the government has given itself the power to decide if these are negatively impacting economic growth.
Ms Upston appears to have changed her tune on the value of concerts in the last few months.
After she announced the $5m fund for major events in June, for which concerts were not eligible, Ms Upston said the government was prepared to look into reviewing the criteria, but it needed to be realistic about whether concerts generated economic value for New Zealand.
"Some may generate an economic boost for the region where they’re held, however overall, the profit tends to go offshore."
"For example, over three years, 14 Auckland shows (including Coldplay and Pearl Jam) generated $33.7m for the local economy with 490,000 attendees."
Some commentators have asked whether big concerts, which generally do not attract overseas visitors because the artists would also have shows in Australia, just shift discretionary spending away from smaller centres where hospitality and retail businesses are also struggling.
Flying Nun Records co-owner Ben Howe argues people have a finite amount of money to spend on entertainment, and if they travel to Auckland for a show, paying for flights and food and accommodation, that would be good for Auckland but not for the places concert-goers came from.
There is also the issue of whether huge concerts with big overseas stars do anything for the local music industry.
He points out most of the money spent on that international music would go offshore to big overseas artists who were already part of massive, profitable enterprises.
He has suggested introducing a ticket levy, as was done in France, where a percentage of the cost would go to local venues and artists.
Mr Howe also supports moves to ensure international artists performing in New Zealand have a local artist in their opening acts.
The Music Managers Forum Aotearoa, inspired by Australia’s "Michael’s Rule" (named after the late artist manager Michael McMartin), a voluntary code proposed by the Association of Artist Managers there, has been pushing for this.
The New South Wales government adopted the rule earlier this year, reducing the hire fee by $20,000 for a variety of venues, and $5000 for the Sydney Opera House.
To be eligible, the shows must include one Australian support act who has to appear on the main stage and be announced at the same time as the tour.
With more details to come about the New Zealand events attraction package, it would be good to see such support for local artists included.
