After 23 years of being held in Auckland’s Central West suburb, the Pasifika Festival is to be held at Hayman Park in Manukau this year, on 14-15 March.
The free annual festival is a major attraction on the Auckland events calendar for thousands from the Cook Islands, Fijian, Niue, Aotearoa, Hawai'ian, Kiribati, Samoan, Tahitian, Tuvalu, Tongan, Tokelau and Melanesian communities who take part in the festival.
Forced out of its traditional home Western Springs Park because of the Queensland fruit fly threat in neighbouring suburb Grey Lynn, the festival and its 300 stalls and 1,000 plus performers will temporarily relocate to Auckland’s south.
Ministry for Primary Industries restrictions means whole fresh fruit and some vegetables can’t be moved out of the 1.5 exclusion zone, which includes the Pasifika Festival site at Western Springs Park.
That will affect the festival’s 230 food and craft stalls and their ability to serve fresh fruit, a staple of traditional Pacific Island cuisine.
Auckland Mayor Len Brown has assured festival goers that organisers have worked tirelessly to ensure the festival goes ahead given MPI’s high-risk advisory.
“Hayman Park will be a good temporary home for Pasifika Festival. It offers the right size, scale and accessibility – with excellent links to public transport – to accommodate the cultural performances, food and craft which make Pasifika one of Auckland’s most loved cultural events,” says Mr Brown.
“It also has a similar feel to Western Springs Park, with mature trees and a layout that lends itself to the village format that Pasifika Festival is famous for – I am looking forward to another great Pasifika Festival.”