Bay Dreams a reality for Nelson in 2020

Wednesday, 3 July 2019

Australian artist Tash Sultana performs to the Bay Dreams crowd at Trafalgar Park in January.

Bay Dreams is back in Nelson for 2020.

After more than 20,000 people descended on Trafalgar Park in Nelson for the inaugural festival in January this year, festival director Toby Burrows was able to confirm the festival would be back next summer.

'When we went into it last year, we had a long term vision for the event,' Burrows said.

'As soon as it was delivered well, council were happy, local stakeholders were happy, then everything sort of shifted into that mode of planning for the next year.'

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More than 20,000 festival goers turned out for the inaugural festival at the beginning of 2019.

Burrows said Nelson City Council had wanted to make sure they could deliver a safe, well-run event, before giving the green light for the 2020 festival.

'When we did that, then we were able to enter into talks about future years.'

Currently, the Nelson City Council is in negotiations to bring Bay Dreams to the city for the next five years.

Mayor Rachel Reese said the inaugural event had been a 'huge success', and hoped the festival could develop further as a key event on the New Zealand music calendar.

Nelson mayor Rachel Reese said most of the people attending this year's festival had come from outside the Nelson region.

'We're keen to share our city and region with visitors again so they can experience the manaakitanga we are famous for.

'It was an absolute blast to welcome 20,000 young people to our city, many of whom were visiting for the first time.'

Burrows said the 2019 event had exceeded the high expectations they had going into it.

'Obviously it sold out within weeks last year, which is the dream. Going into these things when it's your first off event, it's often hard to gauge how they're going to sell, so to get that kind of reception to it was phenomenal.

'It was a really well behaved crowd which was great to see, that was a massive factor we noticed, there to have a good time and not cause trouble.'

He said work had been under way since last year to secure the performers for the 2020 festival, with the line-up set to be announced in July.

The 2019 edition featured high-profile international acts including American rapper Cardi B and Australian dance duo Peking Duk.

In 2020 the Nelson festival will be held at Trafalgar Park on January 4, two days after the Mt Maunganui edition of Bay Dreams.

Burrows said while there would be a little bit of chopping and changing between acts at the two festivals, all the main headliners would be at both events.

'It's looking good, I think we've gone even above and beyond what we managed to secure last year, so we're really excited about it – it's going to be the biggest lineup of the summer in New Zealand.'