Hon Carmel Sepuloni

Minister for Arts, Culture and Heritage

Te Minita Manatū Taonga

Vaccinated New Zealanders can look forward to Kiwi summer events with confidence, while artists and crew will have more certainty, following the launch of details of the Arts and Culture Event Support Scheme, Minister for Arts, Culture and Heritage Carmel Sepuloni announced today.

“The Government recognises that the arts and culture sector has been hit hard by COVID-19 and the Delta outbreak. The pandemic continues to pose challenges for the sector, especially live events and performances during summer,” Carmel Sepuloni said.

“This Arts and Culture Event Support Scheme is about providing certainty for event organisers, confidence for vaccinated New Zealanders to attend and enjoy events, and reassurance for artists and crew that they can get paid if their events can’t go ahead as planned.

“I know that artists, crew and organisers are all eager to get back to doing what they love – putting on great events of all sizes and scope for New Zealanders. Knowing that this scheme exists to support them will be a big help over coming months.”

The Arts and Culture Event Support Scheme covers events with attendee capacity of 100-5000 ticketed or un-ticketed, or more than 5000 un-ticketed (i.e. free). The scheme covers unrecoverable costs, payments yet to be made to the likes of artists and production crew, and reasonable costs to the promoter or organiser for the planning and development of the event.

“We’ve engaged closely with our arts and culture sector to develop the scheme, and we’ll continue to work closely with the sector to ensure organisers know when, where and how to access the support they need.

“Events will need to use the Government’s My Vaccine Pass, in order to be eligible for the scheme. This is particularly important so that other vaccinated New Zealanders can enjoy confidence that the events they’ll attend will be as safe as possible.

“Arts and culture are critically important to our economy. Our $374 million COVID recovery package for the sector, including the $37.5 million Emergency Relief Package announced in September, underlines the social, economic and cultural value of the sector.

“I encourage New Zealanders to get out, enjoy the Kiwi summer and the freedoms it’ll bring, book tickets, make plans to attend events and support local artists, musicians and shows.

“We all deserve to enjoy summer in Aotearoa with certainty and confidence. That’s what this scheme is about and aims to guarantee,” Carmel Sepuloni said.

Editors Notes:

· The registration process opens at 12pm Wednesday December 1. Event organisers need to register their event with MCH as soon as possible, so they can confirm their event’s eligibility before their event date. To register for the scheme, please visit this page on the Manatū Taonga website.

· Support of up to $300,000 is available per eligible event.

· The $22.5 million attached to this Scheme was announced in September as part of the Government’s Emergency Relief Package for the arts and culture sector.

· The financial support will be focused on the costs of not being able to deliver the event on the scheduled date because of restrictions imposed by the ‘red’ setting under the new COVID-19 Protection Framework. The Framework allows for greater public freedom to attend events that require the use of the Government’s My Vaccine Pass. At ‘orange’ level, events that require My Vaccine Passes will be able to go ahead without restrictions.

· Economic and Regional Development Minister Stuart Nash also recently announced an Events Transition Support Payment scheme designed to give festival organisers greater confidence to plan and incur costs, in the face of public health risks from COVID-19. This is designed to support larger, paid-ticketed events with over 5000 attendees.

· To be eligible Manatū Taonga administered Arts and Culture Event Support Scheme, events must have attendee capacity of 100-5000 ticketed or un-ticketed, or more than 5000 un-ticketed (i.e. free).

· The Arts and Culture Event Support Scheme will cover events scheduled to take place between 17 December 2021 and 3 April 2022, impacted by restrictions imposed at the ‘red’ level of the COVID Protection Framework or through localised lockdown.

· These dates align with the date range for the Events Transition Support Scheme administered by the Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment, which is designed to support larger, paid-ticketed events with over 5000 attendees.

· Eligible losses for payment by the Arts and Culture Event Support Scheme include unrecoverable costs, payments yet to be made to artists and production crew, and reasonable costs to the promoter or organiser for the planning and development of the event.

· The support covers events for which planning can be proven to be already underway on 29 November

· The decision about whether to refund tickets or not is a business decision for the event organiser. If tickets are refunded the scheme covers the unrecoverable costs of the event that would otherwise have been covered by box office (ticketing) take.

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