How we keep our position as the arts, culture and events capital

Saturday, 2 November 2024

Alex Matthews is a local business person in the digital production/IT/games sector, an events organiser, and an avid futurist passionate about Aotearoa’s role on the global stage.

OPINION: We’ve had some great weeks in the central city recently. You know the kind I’m talking about – a sunny day, the sweet smell of spring in the air and the Cuba pedestrian mall buzzing with people, music and performers. Cafes bustling with customers, tables spilling out into the streets with patrons as they enjoy our famously good coffee and young and old tourist families ambling the parks with ice creams in hand. This is the Wellington many of us fell in love with; an urban environment packed with art, culture, society and interesting possibilities around every corner.

Under the hood, it’s less of an art and more of a science that leads this phenomenon of Wellington city on a good day. A significant element of it has to do with our events industry. October was a big month for annual events that the capital hosts. We had World of WearableArt, the NZ Game Developers Conference and the Jazz Festival, all of which attracted many people from all over the country to visit Wellington. Other amazing showcases of our globally connected culture included the World Press Photo Exhibition and the Diwali Festival of Lights, to name just a couple.

When the events sector is doing well the rest of the city is visibly thriving and has that wonderful feeling so many of us treasure. In this column series I have been exploring the things that have historically made Wellington a fantastic place, a place where I want to keep living and raise my kids. In last month’s article I looked at our digital sector and what it needs to thrive.

The health of the city is fundamentally tied to events, but the events industry is vulnerable and one we shouldn’t take for granted. Putting on ambitious events is a difficult undertaking on its own, one that comes with great stress and risks for the organisers.

This difficulty compounds as you add environmental pressures, such as the ones we’ve seen over the past five years. On top of the slow pandemic recovery, we are crippled by the cost-of-living crisis with people less likely to go out, still working on earthquake strengthening important venues otherwise closed for years now. The city is also suddenly forced to play catch-up on decades of prior under-investment that sees our buildings needing rebuilding, our water infrastructure needing replacing, and our roads and intersections being dug up. It is no surprise the events, hospitality and accommodation sectors have suffered so much recently.

On top of environmental pressures that were long in the making, there are extra barriers in the form of confused public service delivery models that run public/private hybrid operations that sometimes inherit the worst of both. For example, so many of our public spaces are run for the public good, but with private business models that can create accessibility problems for local content. This frequently falls short of putting public interests first and simultaneously doesn’t work well as a business. We need to make it easy for new, fresh ideas to take stage.

There have been plenty of superb examples over the years of public spaces utilised well for events: Cuba Dupa, Newtown Festival, Lux Light Festival, Homegrown all come to mind. But we can’t take these for granted. We have to consistently strive to ensure our city is as amenable as possible to being the host of amazing events. We need strategies that constantly hunt and experiment with the most effective ways to empower artists, conference organisers, sports teams, musicians and entertainers. That way we can live up to our self-image as an arts, culture, and events epicentre. If we want a thriving events sector, we need to make it as easy as possible for event organisers, for event-goers, and local businesses to make the most of our incredible urban environment.

We need to do more than just recover from the past five years. We need to come out roaring, having learnt from our challenges and turned them into actions for achieving progressive, forward-thinking urban strategies for remaining the culture capital. This needs to happen in tandem with keeping our sports events alive and well; attracting international sporting teams that bring in so much people and commerce. At a minimum we can address the plague of the empty hotels, closing cafes, under-trafficked attractions and quiet office buildings. But at a maximum we can shift gears from survive to thrive.

I get the impression many share this feeling. We are ready to get on with things, make changes where needed, and get serious about investing in the future we all want to see; a city overflowing with fun, interesting experiences, an urban landscape that provides a feast for the senses, a viable market for businesses and an inspiring and welcoming city for people to visit and start their own love stories.