Support for Garden Fest

Christchurch city council's decision to confirm its support for a new garden festival has met with an enthusiastic response from Penny Clark, Christchurch-based chairman of the NZ Hotel Council, says the Council’s endorsement of the festival, which will be held in the first half of October 2005, is fantastic news.

“The first two weeks of October are always very soft. It (the festival timing) is just ideal for hoteliers and will have a ripple effect on everyone in the community.

It also supports the start of the (tourist) season and builds on what we are already known for, being a garden city.”

Christchurch and Canterbury Marketing chief executive Ian Bougen says the timing of next year’s festival is ideal. “A significant event at that time of year with a garden flavour is very much looked for by Japanese and other markets,” he says.

The Council will contribute $185,000 worth of funding to the event in this financial year, from 1 July. Sponsorship will also be sought by the event organisers, New Zealand Garden Festival Trust.

City Councillors discussed the proposed event at their meeting last month. Their decision, reconfirming Council support for the event, means the NZ Garden Festival Trust

has the backing to begin to build a worldclass festival to support the city’s garden city reputation.

Pamela Williams, chair of NZ Garden Festival Trust, is confident the festival will also benefit businesses in the industry.

“This festival will provide exciting economic and marketing oppor tunities for many Christchurch businesses and organisations involved in all aspects of gardening,” she says.

“The financial benefit to the city of the festival has been conservatively estimated at $4 million.”

The new garden festival was to be held this year but was postponed to give the Trust time to do more consultation following intense lobbying by some interested commercial and garden organisations.

Mrs Williams says the Trust is willing to work with everyone to maximise the benefits of what would be an iconic citywide festival.

At its meeting last month, the Council also agreed that its Festival and Events Subcommittee should bring together interested organisations to look at ways of working together to strengthen the links between events across the four seasons of the year.