21-05-2025
Auckland passing hat around to save popular public events
Money charged by Auckland Council to develop the city centre will be diverted and the mayoral office budget tapped to keep events in the city going this year.
Public gatherings in a council list of being at risk of no funding include the ASB Classic tennis, Auckland Marathon, Sail GP and Auckland Writers' Festival.
The city has now created an Auckland Major Events Fund to 'pull together different funding sources' including seeking 'voluntary contributions from private businesses' to help plug a $7m funding hole. That fund would aim to cover a minimum level of events.
The risk to popular events arises from funding cuts for events agency Tatāki Auckland Unlimited – and the council optimistically urging the central Government to change a law to raise the money needed.
The scramble for alternative funds comes late in the council's budget process for the next financial year.
Advice from council staff to a budget committee workshop on Wednesday said: 'If no additional funding is made available, there would be no funding available for mega, major or regional events.'
Mayor Wayne Brown, who has been a hardline cost-cutter on the Tatāki Auckland (TAU) budget through his three-year term, is now leading the late scramble to maintain some funding.
Going into the 2025/2026 financial year starting on July 1, TAU is $7m short of the $16.5m budgeted for it in the council's long-term plan for the year's destination management and major events functions.
Brown and the council have been disappointed by the Government's refusal to countenance their proposed visitor bed-night levy. That would put a 2.5 percent charge on accommodation prices.
The Minister for Auckland, Simeon Brown, has flatly ruled it out, saying it is not on the agenda for this term of government.
Crowds watch the racing on day one of the SailGP event in January 2025.
Without the millions it normally had available to spend from ratepayers, or the expected bed tax income, TAU has already started withdrawing from bids for bringing future major events to the city.
In late April, the TAU chief executive, Nick Hill, surprised councillors and the mayor by advising Auckland had had to pull out of seeking to host the 2030 World Gay Games.
In a confidential email, Hill indicated that on present budget forecasts Auckland would also struggle to back the 2027 women's Lions tour, the 2029 men's Lions Tour or a 2028 ICC World Cup cricket tournament.
Now, with no money coming to the rescue from central government, Brown has told the budget committee he has come up with $3m of the $7m shortfall and needs TAU to reprioritise its budgets to find the remainder.
The mayor said there was clear support for events from the public during consultation on the coming Budget. He had a commitment to 'incentivise' industry to make financial contributions towards the events fund.
Brown revealed he had negotiated with the City Centre Advisory Panel, which monitors spending from a special, targeted rate for developing the Auckland city centre, for a contribution of $2.5m from its reserves.
Brown said he would also contribute $500,000 that had been underspent from the mayoral office budget.
He told councillors TAU would then be instructed to come up with the remaining $4m from its own reserves to keep events happening 'until we have secured the additional funding that will come from new initiatives and partnerships with industry'.
'While this doesn't close the gap completely yet, we will do so in the next few months which shouldn't impact the prospecting for events in FY27 [the financial year 2026/27].
'At the same time, I will keep asking Government to pay their fair share in support of events that boost GDP while filling their GST coffers.'
Brown's note to councillors showed some irritation at TAU having declared it had pulled out of seeking an event.
'I don't want to be surprised to hear we are withdrawing from any event bids in the near future.'
Before Auckland set its next long-term plan, the mayor expected 'greater transparency over the bidding process, management of funding for this activity and reporting on the return on investment'.
He and his office had made clear to the TAU chair and executive that any problem in bidding for an event should be returned to the council for consideration before any move to withdraw.
Asked by his deputy mayor, Desley Simpson, if he would guarantee that if industry fundraising did not meet the immediate $7m target he would cover the total gap from his mayoral budget, Brown demurred. He questioned whether the $7m was an actual required total or perhaps 'plucked from the air because there's seven days in the week'.
But he was confident that after industry donations no event the city really wanted would miss out. 'We'll make sure that Tatāki don't drop anything off their list.
'I'm not going to be asking for increased rates or borrowing. We will manage this one way or the other.'
While Brown claimed the temporary fund would be 'more than enough to provide certainty to the TAU board to keep moving with the events programme', council officers' advice was less positive.
'If only the $7m [long-term plan] budget shortfall is addressed,' they wrote in a report, 'only a minimum programme of events could be delivered.
'While a short-term funding approach would enable some programme benefits to be maintained, a lack of funding certainty may make it challenging to maintain a pipeline of major events, many of which have large, multi-year lead times.'
Asked by Councillor Shane Henderson what form voluntary contributions from industry to the events fund might take, Brown's chief of staff Jazz Singh focused on hotel firms. 'Industry groups are keen to see an ability to contribute to events they are looking for, for example, concerts. If they can see a return on additional nights … they are happy to contribute.'
Officials said adding the $7m shortfall directly to the rates would cost $9.14 a year for an average residential unit, or 18 cents a week.
Using rates to directly fund the full $27m events had been predicted to need under the long-term plan would cost $35.37 for an average residential unit, or 68 cents a week.
The report ruled out paying for the events' shortfall by taking on extra debt, or selling more council assets, as 'inappropriate'.
