Funding criteria change could see end of Buskers Festival

The Nelson Buskers Festival likely won’t return next year if changes to the criteria for Nelson City Council’s community events grants programme remain.

Festival producer Giles Burton warned elected members of the risk at council’s annual plan hearing.

He highlighted that the criteria for successful bids requires events to entertain and inspire an audience and – the new addition to the criteria – support personal development within the local community.

“In the past, the Buskers Festival is purely about bringing in international and super high-quality acts,” Giles says.

“Now a core part of the events is that people from the community are being developed… That doesn’t work if you’re bringing in international acts.”

Councillors Rachel Sanson and Matty Anderson questioned why the Buskers Festival couldn’t fill the requirement to support community development, perhaps by running workshops led by the professional buskers or using local acts.

“I would love to do workshops and so forth, but that would realistically be an additional cost. You’d have to pay people, but you’d also need to keep them for longer or find time to do that,” Giles explains.

“Also, we are looking at people at a higher level. I work with all those people doing local events and have a great respect for them, but they’re not the kind of international level that we’re trying to bring in.”

He adds that he’s investigated alternative funding options from the NRDA and Creative New Zealand, however the Buskers Festival also doesn’t fit their criteria.

“If we want this event to continue, I think realistically the only way is for council to take it over.”

In recent years, the Buskers Festival has been budgeted $45,000 though Giles warns that $50,000 would likely be needed for 2024 because of inflation, but most of that goes back into the community through expenses like accommodation.

But Mayor Nick Smith was wary of simply allocating funds in the Annual Plan, or Long-Term Plan, for a single group.

“I’ve got lots of organisations who would love to have that; I prefer to have contestability. But equally so, I’m a bit uncomfortable about the criteria being changed in a way that’s eliminated you,” he says.

“I would like some advice from officers about why that change was made and whether they understood at the time that it would eliminate Buskers [Festival], because my preference would be to have a good criteria rather than have an uncontestable process, but that’s something we need to work through.”

Giles normally begins to take applications for buskers in August, so a call on whether the event goes ahead would likely come around that time.

It’s estimated more than 5,000 people viewed the 2023 festival and 92 per cent of survey respondents said they would recommend the festival to others.