Besides a few chatty musos who can’t seem to keep their mouths shut, things are going pretty well in the Laneway Festival camp. Organisers have reportedly locked in most of their 2016 lineup and it’s “shaping up to be one of our biggest yet”.
However, it now appears they may have to weigh their options and seek moving one of their most popular legs from its traditional home, where it first launched five years ago, to a new city. According to The Music Network, Laneway Auckland is currently without a home.
Back in 2010, Laneway NZ was held at the Britomart precinct on the waterfront before it moved a year later to Aotea Square. It was then staged at Silo Park at Wynyard Quarter, where last year it drew a crowd of 12,000 punters.
However, Wynyard Quarter is set to be turned into a residential redevelopment. For the past nine months, Laneway has been working with the local council on a move to the Domain cricket grounds, where they were assured everything was fine.
But earlier this week news broke that the Domain would not be available in 2016. The grounds are allowed a limit of three major events per year. With Christmas in the Park and the Auckland Arts Festival already booked, it’s believed the Lantern Festival is poised to move to the Domain.
Last night, Auckland Council confirmed Laneway would not be able to secure the Domain for next year’s festival, though they are keen to have the event there in 2017. Obviously, this leaves organisers in a precarious position.
“I think ‘shocked’ is the word. This has come out of nowhere,” Laneway NZ Director Mark Kneebone, who was in New York when news broke, told NZ TV. “We’re obviously still working through it and we have other partners we have to deal with. So it’s a very big hurdle that’s in place now.”
To make matters worse, time is working against organisers. They’re currently looking at several options, including Albert Park, but moving the festival would require a lengthy consent process, which may not be completed in time for the festival’s 1st February launch.
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The cities of Wellington and Canterbury have indicated interest in having Laneway 2016 staged in their respective cities and it’s looking like a viable option for organisers like Laneway New Zealand Partner Manolo Echave, who said the festival has been “kneecapped”.
Echave would ideally like to see the festival stay in Auckland, where 75 percent of its audience is based. “One way or another we will make the event work. Where we make it work is the only uncertainty,” Echave told the New Zeland Herald.
“We are going into a lengthy resource consent process where there are a number of stakeholders including the university and so on, and I don’t know if we have got the time,” Echave added. He may want to take a look at this report by the NZ Herald suggesting five potential Laneway sites.
