PRESS RELEASE
Wednesday, July 20, 2011

New venue for international Takitimu Festival

The iconic Hawke’s Bay Opera House in Hastings will be the centre point of a Takitimu entertainment precinct for more than 500 performers from around the Pacific during the four-day international Takitimu Festival in September.

The opera house will run five stages simultaneously during the festival, providing up to 12 hours of entertainment on each day of the festival, which brings together all of the Pacific nations affiliated to the waka Takitimu.

Opera house manager Roger Coleman says the festival will put the venue to the test and require “all hands on deck” from staff.

“It is a big challenge not only in terms of staff but in terms of resources, such as sound and visual equipment but we have been working with the festival’s executive director Tama Huata over the past year and he has a good plan in place,” he says.

Mr Coleman believes the festival will turn this west-end of Hastings city into “a massive entertainment precinct” with the opera house at the centre of the action.

“When the opera house was redeveloped (in 2005), I think the people who invested in its infrastructure wanted it to the centre for the city’s entertainment, that’s what we will achieve with the festival.

“And when you think about how many people are coming, between 5000 and 6000, into the heart of Hastings, it’s going to be a nice injection into the city at the end of winter.”

Performers will run a number of programmes and shows to share their culture, art, food and entertainment with the public, many of those who come along to the event are expected to be visitors in town for the Rugby World Cup.

Feature events include a Pacific music expo, the international Takitimu Indigenous Peoples Business Conference and a Pacific fashion show.

Outside the opera house a 100-metre marquee will be set up on Hastings St to provide multiple outdoor entertainment areas.

It will include a Pacific food market, children’s entertainment and a stage for bands and kapa haka groups to perform. In the evenings the outdoor venue will be used for “unplugged” entertainment until about 9.30pm.

“Seeing the road outside the opera house turned into a venue is probably going to be one of the most exciting thing about this project,” Mr Coleman says.

“I don’t think people realise how being this is, there are people coming in at the same time as the festival for the Rugby World Cup but this is going to be as big as that.”
ends

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