Coast to Coast: Great events are born, not bought

[The famous Coast To Coast endurance event crosses the country to finish in our Port Hills electorate. With the recent controversy over using ratepayer dollars to set up events in our city, Islay McLeod, a candidate for the Hagley Ferrymead Community Board in the October elections, gives her thoughts on this issue.]

28 years ago, Robin Judkins started an event expecting 35 entries (he got 79) and the now-legendary Coast To Coast is credited with starting multi-sport in this country. Many years ago, two women started a local fundraiser in Nelson. That turned into the World of Wearable Arts. 30 years ago, a group in San Diego started a Sand Sculpture contest and that's grown into an event that even attracted a City Councillor from Christchurch New Zealand.

Point being ... great events aren't bought, they're born. There has been a lot of criticism about Councillor Sheriff's trip to San Diego to study a "sand castle competition" – from me included – but the biggest waste of time and our money is that she has not apparently returned with a copy of their Production Schedule.

While Councillor Sheriff was being feted and treated like a VIP, invited to judge a section of the competition, chatting to the media and having Discovery Channel assuring her they'll be here, I can't help feeling that she missed the point ... to learn how to run the event, not be a star at it.

Creating events is a bit like creating a recipe for success. When Dunedin wanted to run a Winter Festival, as Events Manager for the Council, I rang round and discovered that Dunedin doesn't get cold enough for a snow-making machine (neither does Christchurch) and with Queenstown up the road, why bother? So, take a look at what Dunedin does have that spells "winter" and build an event around that ...Cadbury chocolate factory, hot chocolate, Cadbury Chocolate Carnival.

As Events Manager for the Christchurch City Council, I was all for setting a Kite Day in Hagley Park until Julie from the Kite Shop (local) recommended the better wind location of New Brighton beach and at a time that would bring in the International Kite Fliers already touring. That event started with a few hundred turning out and apparently, six years later, it's up to 10,000.

Christchurch now celebrates the arrival of Spring when the bar-tailed godwits touch down from their epic journey. That event only costs the time of Ranger Andrew Crossland keeping watch for their arrival, a phone call to the Cathedral and a ring-around the media.

Events don't need to cost a lot of money to achieve success, depending on what that success is decided to be. As Sheriff will discover, first you need a scoping study to determine (and convince investors) whether or not your idea/concept will, in fact, come off – no matter how bloody brilliant it might be! And, then it'll need an experienced eye to run a budget over it to determine when – if ever – it will run at a profit and how that profit would be achieved. The clincher will be the track record of the person who's going to run the event.

There's a lot of work to be done yet. It might have been handy to have the Production Schedule from San Diego but, thanks to Google, there's no fear of the Discover Channel arriving here next summer to find that the event was all "castles in the air".