The Harbour Street Jazz and Blues Festival, Steampunk NZ and the Oamaru Victorian Heritage Celebrations each hold annual festivals, injecting vibrancy and giving significant boosts to Oamaru’s tourism industry.
But organisers involved in all three organisations say getting funding has become so difficult they have begun discussions about sharing resources and combining efforts to keep things afloat.
Jazz and Blues Festival event co-ordinator Jacob Barwick said the three festivals’ funding gave a "big" economic boost to the town and the Thames and Harbour Sts areas.
"We love putting on these events for the town, but it is getting harder," he said.
"It’s a lot of groups of volunteers who give up a lot of time and effort and a lot of skill to put on a festival and a lot of the time it’s on very limited resources."
He and Lea Campbell, who is Steampunk NZ organiser and has worked on the Garden Party for the Oamaru Victorian Heritage Celebrations, have begun talking about a combined approach.
Ms Campbell said the main sources of funding for Steampunk came from the Lotteries Grants Board, Otago Community Trust and regional events.
The cost of big events soaked up all the funding, Ms Campbell said.
"If you focused on the cost of something specific, like the parade, [this involves] the location, the road closures and the traffic management plan, the marshalls and all the other things that go into it.
"There is no income for us and it’s free for the community to attend. That’s a lot of dollars."
Steampunk NZ’s ticketed events were self-funded.
"The difficulty for us is that each year our ticketed events always sell out, so there is no capacity for more in that," Ms Campbell said.
Mr Barwick said the music festival faced a similar situation.
"It’s a double-edged sword — to get the funding we have to put a lot more work into things that don’t generate funding."
Principal sponsorship for the Jazz and Blues Festival came from the Oamaru Licensing Trust, the Lion Foundation and from the Otago community, Mr Barwick said. Fundraisers and donations made up the rest of the funding.
The "funding is out there" although harder to get and the parameters of getting the funding had changed, Mr Barwick said.
But the Harbour Street Jazz and Blues Festival "was happy" to receive $15,550 funding last week from the Otago Community Trust, which would go to marketing, advertising and promotions.
