Tuesday, December 16, 2014

Raggamuffin hits AK

Raggamuffin Festival was held last weekend, with organisers reporting that 18,000 people attended the event, the first in Auckland since its relocation from previous home Rotorua.

Auckland reggae DJ Dubhead, who has played at several previous events and again this past weekend, estimated last weekend's crowd at around 14,000.

Raggamuffin organisers decided to move the event from Rotorua to Auckland after February's event in the sulphur city, when attendance numbers were reported as being down on the previous year.

Organiser Andrew McManus told the NZHerald he lost more than $1 million on the [February] concert this year, and that about 70% of attendees travelled from Auckland to Rotorua for the event.

Rotorua Daily Post, quoting a Rotorua District Council economic impact report, says that the concert attracted 32,000 people in 2008, 22,000 in 2009, 29,000 in 2010, 30,000 in 2011, 20,000 in 2012, and 25,000 in 2013. 

The Daily Post reports that "About 19,000 people attended the festival at the Rotorua International Stadium in 2014, a 30 per cent drop from last year."

So, if Raggamuffin shifts to Auckland and still drops attendance numbers, will it return next year?

As Chris Schulz, reviewing the show for the NZ Herald noted, the rainy weather may have had a hand to play (especially in lower crowd numbers) but hosting a summer festival in December is always gonna be a gamble.

Reviews of the event were largely positive, with Schulz saying "Trusts Stadium Arena is a fantastic venue for a festival around half the size of the Big Day Out: queues were minimal, food and drink options were plentiful and a covered stand even provided shelter from the constant drizzle."


Previous posts:  Raggamuffin moves to AK (June 19 2014) Herbs vs Raggamuffin (March 26 2011), Raggamuffin rumblings (Dec 8 2010), Raggamuffin cancels Aust shows (2012) Ali Campbell owed $ by Raggamuffin (2012)

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

http://www.smh.com.au/nsw/andrew-mcmanus-at-centre-of-storm-20141115-11mw28.html
http://www.theage.com.au/victoria/police-raid-home-and-business-of-rock-n-roll-promoter-andrew-mcmanus-20141121-11rgc9.html

The attendance numbers for 2011 and onwards are all largely exaggerated.
This is to justify the councils financial investment - http://www.nzherald.co.nz/rotorua-daily-post/news/article.cfm?c_id=1503438&objectid=11288117

Anonymous said...

The numbers of people attending got bigger in the last 3 years even though the festival and actual numbers got smaller because they were counting the number that attended over 2 days instead of 1. So, if someone went to both days they were counted as 2 people. So, overall the profits were down because the ticket price for the first day was less than a quarter of the original ticket price