Culture crown in need of a shine

WELLINGTON needs to offer more to remain the arts and events capital, arts leaders say as a survey shows the city is losing its grip on the crown.

Wellington City Council’s annual resident satisfaction survey showed a nine per cent reduction to 51 per cent of people seeing the city as the arts capital – the second decrease in two years. Perception of whether Wellington was the events capital also fell nine per cent, to 70 per cent.

Museum Hotel owner and arts patron Chris Parkin said the city had to innovate and refresh its arts image to recapture people’s attention.

‘‘Auckland will never be an arts capital, it’s just not the right fit. The crown is there but we have to pick it up and take it. We can’t just passively wait for it to be placed on our heads.’’

Wellingtonians had become used to the level of arts and events on offer in the city, and new ideas were needed to keep the city innovative. ‘‘The reason people are starting to think this way is that there hasn’t been growth.’’

He and other arts supporters were working on a festival of visual arts for the city. ‘‘But this takes time. You can’t have an instant transformation. With the NZ International Arts Festival we’ve been doing it for 20 years now and people are a bit ho hum by now.’’

Footnote Dance founder Deirdre Tarrant said there was more competition from main centres for funding now, and fresh ideas were always needed.

‘‘There’s a huge benefit in being the arts capital. It’s like Paris, London, Melbourne. It says we are creative and we don’t mind taking risks. It’s essential to keep developing that.’’

Mayor Celia Wade-Brown said there had been a bigger budget allocated to arts events, and new venues such as Shed 6 could help keep the arts crown.

‘‘A Maori performance venue, considering whether the International Arts Festival should become an annual event and publicising all the wonderful performances and visual arts from local and overseas artists is absolutely necessary.’’

Council chief executive Kevin Lavery said arts and events were an area of strength, but the city could always do better. There was a 12 per cent reduction in people seeing the city’s diverse culture and lifestyles as a positive, and 45 per cent of people said Wellington had good community spirit – down 26 per cent on last year.