Laneway currently homeless in New Zealand
Laneway Festival New Zealand has locked in most of its 30 acts for next year crowing that “It's shaping up to be one of our biggest yet” – but now it has to find a new home for 2016.
The New Zealand arm of the Australian festival has been staged in Auckland since it launched five years ago, and two thirds of its audience comes from this city. In 2010 Laneway was at the Britomart precinct on the waterfront and moved a year later to Aotea Square. It was then staged at Silo Park at Wynyard Quarter where last year it drew 12,000.
But Wynyard Quarter is to be turned into a residential redevelopment. For the past nine months, Laneway has been working with local council to move to the Domain cricket grounds and had been assured everything was fine.
But this week it leaked out that the Domain won’t be available in 2016. It might have something to do with the fact the grounds are only allowed to have three major events there a year. It already has Christmas in the Park and the Auckland Arts Festival, and it is believed that the Lantern Festival, which drew between 160,000 to 200,000 to Albert Park, is moving there to accommodate the size of the crowd.
Last night, Auckland Council confirmed Laneway can’t have the Domain next year but it is keen to have it staged there in 2017.
Laneway NZ Director Mark Kneebone was in New York when he found out. "I think ‘shocked’ is the word. This has come out of nowhere. We're obviously still working through it and we have other partners we have to deal with. So it's a very big hurdle that's in place now," he told NZ TV.
The festival is looking at a couple of options in Auckland, including Albert Park. But it would need to go through a lengthy “consent” process from venue stakeholders, and these boxes might not all be ticked in time for next year’s festival on February 1.
The cities of Wellington and Canterbury have signalled they’d like to have it staged there. Determined that the festival will be held next year, moving out of Auckland, even for a year, could be a major option for Kneebone.
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