Dunedin is nearly booked out, with some having to fork up to $1000 a night for a room, as international pop star Pink gears up to perform one of the largest concerts in the city’s history.
Around 37,000 fans are expected to pile into Forsyth Barr Stadium on Tuesday night to see the American singer at her third-ever concert at the venue.
To help ease the accommodation, demand the Dunedin City Council has converted the Victoria Rd car park into a temporary campervan area.
Dunedin City Council events team leader Dan Hendra said 100 bookable spots are available for certified self-contained vehicles next to the Dunedin Ice Stadium, from Monday through to Wednesday.
Meanwhile, online travel agency Booking.com has no rooms available in Dunedin for Tuesday night, while Airbnb has three properties available: a campervan room in Halfway Bush and two properties in Fairfield, 12km away from the event, one of which costs $1166 a night.
Christie said there’s temporary accommodation being provided through car park spaces and i-Site is working with concertgoers to help find last-minute accommodation.
He told the Herald that demand for the Victoria Rd campervan park has been “chocka” with a “couple of sites remaining.”
Sharon Holt, who isn’t going to the Pink concert but was looking for accommodation in Dunedin, told the Herald she was struggling to find a spot back in December.
“We got to looking at accommodation in Dunedin and there was nothing - the only thing we could find was something that was $1500 for the night,” Holt said.
Sharon and her husband decided to buy a van instead and convert it into a motorhome so they could find a camping site instead, but to no avail.
“In January we committed to that option but there weren’t even any campervan sites at all."
Christie said the concert is expected to bring in tens of millions of dollars.
“We know an All Blacks test match is about $10 million worth of economic benefits in the city, so this would be a magnitude slightly higher than that, but we won’t know the actual figure until the analysis is done."
Hospitality NZ chief executive Steve Armitage told the Herald that hospitality operators in Dunedin have been “awaiting the concert in eager anticipation.
“We are seeing that people are choosing to stay either a night or two on either side of the show which is a real bonus for the region.”
“Many of those people are certainly going to be visiting hospitality establishments in the lead-up to the concert and most likely afterwards, so most of our operators are ensuring they’ve got ample staff on hand and can cater to the demand that that we expect to see come through."
Following her Dunedin show, Pink will play in Auckland on Friday and Saturday, before returning to Australia.
