Behind the scenes at the theatres

A109 Light Utility Helicopter flight with mayor Gisborne City from the air in November 2023.

GISBORNE’S premiere mid-sized theatre will not just be closed for its own refurbishments, it will also be shut during the day for a longer period due to noise caused by the demolition of the adjacent Gisborne District Council offices.

The council says that with work due to start on its administration block on August 1, the 285-seat theatre and its 100-capacity function room will not be available for use during the day, but can still be used for night-time events.

The 1967 Colin Pilbrow-designed building will be totally closed for about six months from November 12 for its own $1.1 million refurbishment project, primarily earthquake strengthening.

Council community and recreation manager Andrew White says the closure periods will come at an estimated loss of $30,000-$40,000 in revenue.

Originally funded by the Gisborne community and local Gisborne farmer and aerial top-dressing pioneer the late Lawson Field (1896-1981), the 200-seat theatre was built in 1983 with the adjoining Rose Room later added as a conference/reception area.

The council’s recent Residents Satisfaction Survey (2015) listed Lawson Field Theatre as one of the top three in terms of services and facilities residents said offered the “highest levels of satisfaction”. Its measure of 83 percent satisfac-tion was topped only by Tairawhiti Museum (91 percent) and the public library services (87 percent).

Meanwhile, council has officially completed and closed its multimillion-dollar War Memorial Theatre project.

Construction on renovating the city’s largest theatre started on site in October, 2013 and was finished and the building handed over to the council on April 24, 2015.

With a $9.6m budget — $5.65m coming via grants raised by the War Memorial Theatre Gisborne Trust — the project came in on time and on budget, says project manager David Wilson.

Lessons to be learnedHowever, Wilson says there were a number of lessons to be learned, particularly around the project team’s communication with the fundraising trust, which he believes could in future be managed by setting “clear expectations with interested parties as to their role and how they can be involved in the construction stage”.

In his report to council, Wilson said there was also a lack of clarity around who “owned or was responsible for” certain elements of the project, the lesson being to to involve other parties “sooner in the project rather than leaving hand-over to the end of the project”.

There was also a lack of procedure around taking the theatre from construction to operational mode, he added.

And money was tight, the contingency fund of $350,000 “put everyone under constant pressure” and the team was “fortunate to not have any major issues that would have taken the project over budget”.