Waipā District Council has made the difficult decision to cancel events planned for the Mighty River Domain in December, citing uncertainly around the COVID-19 traffic light framework.
Events scheduled in December were the Te Puku O Te Ika Regional Sprint Championships 2021, set to take place December 11-12, and the Karapiro Rowing Christmas Regatta, scheduled for December 16-19.
Mighty River Domain Site Manager and Waipā District Council Deputy Mayor, Liz Stolwyk, said the news would be disappointing for some event organisers, but not unexpected.
‘‘Unfortunately, we are still waiting for more detail about large scale outdoor events under the Government’s new traffic light system, and without that clarity, we’ve had to make the difficult call to hold off running events in December,” Cr Stolwyk said.
New Zealand moves to the COVID Protection Framework on December 3 but there is still uncertainty for events, she said.
The framework stipulates that all indoor and outdoor events will have no capacity limits for attendees with vaccination certificates at green or orange, while at red, the capacity limit is cut to 100, Council said in a statement.
Furthermore, if an event doesn’t insist on vaccination certificates being a condition of entry, they cannot operate at all at orange or red.
Council’s Manager Property Services, Bruce Nunns said there was ambiguity around restrictions for events, particularly those events that have open access and are non-ticketed.
“There needs to be time to understand the new operational requirements in order to plan how to operate events under the traffic light framework,” he said.
“While it’s disappointing, Council needs to act cautiously before committing to the extended costs of running these events.”
To find out all guidelines in place for running events at the different alert levels, head to https://covid19.govt.nz/activities/events-and-entertainment/.
For more information about what events are on in Waipā, visit whatsonwaipa.co.nz.
