The Mission Concert, Art Deco Weekend and New Zealand Horse of the Year Show have been identified as the top three attractions in the most recent version of a strategy aiming to change Hawke's Bay's jumbled approach to regional events.
Hawke's Bay Tourism has been charged with the responsibility of writing a regional events strategy and over the next month will ask for a commitment from the region's councils to help fund and resource the project.
This week Hawke's Bay Tourism asked the Hastings District Council's community grants committee for $40,000 to achieve the goals of the strategy and would make similar requests to other councils through long-term plan reviews, which must be completed before the end of June.
Hawke's Bay Tourism's general manager Annie Dundas, in her report to the Hastings council, said the aim of the strategy was to make Hawke's Bay the host region of choice for events in New Zealand.
It would capitalise on the region's climate, facilities and lifestyle.
The organisation employed Rebecca McPherson as its regional events manager on a one-year contract which started in February this year.
Ms Dundas said however, if the strategy was to be successful, Ms McPherson's position needed to be made full-time.
"The role of the regional events manager is to provide a co-ordinated regional approach to visitor event servicing," she said.
An an example, Ms Dundas said earlier this year the Wellington-based Central Pulse netball team approached multiple councils and entities individually for sponsorship to support their campaign to play in Hawke's Bay as part of the ANZ Championship.
"If there had been a central point of contact, this request would have been assessed against the criteria of the regional events strategy and a decision made to support on behalf of the region or not," she said.
It was important the value of events were clearly understood and reported on so funders like councils could make a "better informed" decision on which event to back.
Ms Dundas said the strategy would use the assessment model set up by the Ministry of Economic Development to identify the true value of an event and its return on investment.
It had divided about 30 annual events into three categories. Mission Concert, Art Deco and Horse of the Year were listed at "signature" or "tier 1 events". They were events which were strongly associated with or unique to the region and attracted 2500 visitors or more.
Putting events into order would help sort out Hawke's Bay's "fragmented" event funding system.
"The newly formed Events Advisory Group would look to take ownership of a consolidated discretionary event fund that would see events come forward and apply for support," Ms Dundas said.