Boost for city events

The city council is seeking public support in the Long Term Plan public consultation process to spend $9.4 million on events funding over the next ten years.

The proposal is to boost funding to $525,000 next year and increase the amount over the coming years.


The successful jet sprints event is a result of the new events funding approach.

Encouraged by success of the eight-month-old Flagship Events portfolio, TCC is now planning to lift its investment in events to match other national event cities.

The staff report to councillors states the current events portfolio is returning $2.5 million for a $325,000 investment in the annual programme.

The thinking is that with an annual investment of $1.29 million by 2024/2025, Tauranga could have an annual events return of $9.95 million.

The Major Events Framework is intended to shape the direction of Tauranga's Major Events landscape over the next ten years and sets out the outcomes possible for Tauranga from a substantially enhanced portfolio.

The outcomes include economic growth through increased visitors and event spending, and an enhanced national and international profile through showcasing Tauranga and increased resident pride in the city.

To achieve the targets in the framework, this proposes a Major Events Fund of $525,000 in the year 2015/16, and an increasing budget over the next ten years to $1.29million in 2024/25.

The policy provides for public and private sector investment into major events for the city, and there is opportunity to grow the private sector investment in Major Events over time.

As such, private sector funding will be an essential part of the overall investment required to deliver the outcomes of the Major Events Framework.

'If we had not developed the Major Events Framework we would not have supported the jet sprints,” says Mayor Stuart Crosby of last weekend's popular powerboating event.

Council investment in the event was matched dollar for dollar by the private sector.

Key steps in the Framework development include targeted engagement with external stakeholders like Tourism BOP, Bay Venues Ltd, Priority One, Sport BOP, TECT and Creative Tauranga to workshop desired outcomes of major events for the city.

The Major Events Framework adopts a portfolio approach, focusing less on the standalone outcomes of a single event and more on how the individual events combine to deliver a total set of outcomes.

The approach sees the portfolio viewed, measured and reported as a whole. This will still involve individual assessment of events to inform decision making; Key Performance Indicators will be set at a portfolio level.

While the workshop found there was an emphasis on major events delivering economic outcomes for the city, they also have to have local community outcomes and encourage community engagement.

The social outcomes will be measured by a panel of five members comprising of The Mayor, The Chief Executive, 3 private funders, key staff and an external expert.

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1 comment

And me!!!!

Posted on 31-01-2015 05:03 | By Jimmy Ehu

I would like to be the ratepayers representative on your little local government "quango", so where do I sign up?, or is there no public input?, and we as usual have to just place our trust in the usual suspects?.


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