Mission concert 2017 date announced

The Mission Estate Winery Concert is back on track for 2017, with what organisers and management describe as a "major international act" which they are confident will fill the big open air arena on April 8.

"We are very pleased - this act is going to be great," Sports Entertainment Ltd (SEL) special events and entertainment manager Garry Craft said, adding the artist would be announced next Thursday.

"We are very happy with the line-up and we have a very strong support bill as well," Mr Craft said.

"I have been chasing this [main] artist for about 18 months now and it has been on-again, off-again, on-again - it has been a lot of work and pretty tough but we have now got it up and running."

SEL chairman James Erskine said he was equally excited the deal had been done, to get the annual Mission Concert back on track and with an act he said would create "one very special day" at the open air arena which staged its first concert in 1993 when Kiri Te Kanawa took the stage.

There had only been two cancellations since then - in 2009 the Lionel Richie concert was abandoned due to heavy rain and in 2015 when efforts to find an artist failed to eventuate.

Mr Craft said tying in potential concert schedules with artists' touring and other commitments was often difficult - as it had been that year.

Mission Estate chief executive Peter Holley agreed, and paid tribute to Mr Craft's successful pursuit of an act he said was "very exciting".

"It has been months and months of hard work and we've got it."

He added that while crowd numbers had been down at the past few concerts he was confident the numbers will be up next April.

"This is going to attract a larger crowd - definitely."

He said the later timeslot of the fourth month of the year, rather than the traditional February, had been determined by the availability of the act.

Mr Craft said he had no problems with the April date and said changes in weather patterns over the past decade had provided event management groups with an extended window of open-air concert options.

"Ten years ago the weather would have been close to winter in April but the weather patterns have changed - Aprils have been fantastic."

He also predicted the concert would attract a big crowd.

The artist and supporting acts will be announced around noon on October 13 and tickets would go on sale shortly after that.

Mission Concert Club members would get first dibs on tickets with general public sales likely to be two days afterwards.