Editorial: Mission decision not right

The Mission Concert has been called off this year.

The announcement yesterday that there would be no Mission Concert in February was not good for our region.

The organisers were quick to insist that this was not the end of the concert, but a mere postponement to later in the year or possible 2016. Let's hope that is true.

The value of the Mission concert has always been the subject of much debate. People discuss it endlessly - be it the standard of the acts, the price of the tickets, the behaviour of crowds or the availability of drinks. They discuss it because as a region we love the Mission Concert - it has a Hawke's Bay uniqueness about it.

And there's the rub. In postponing the concert until a suitable act is found, the organisers have lost momentum and, even worse, they have put doubt in the minds of loyal concert goers.

The quality and current appeal of the acts in last year's concert, dubbed the British and Irish Invasion, had already pushed the loyalty of fans. But to put the whole thing on hold is a difficult place to come back from. It could be on hold forever.

Most people I spoke to were in agreement that instead of trying to go for the big names, the organisers should have widened their scope. One idea was our very own superstar Lorde. She may not be the number one choice of the demographic that goes to the Mission Concert, but they would still have gone to see her because she is homegrown and she is an international success. The other idea was to simply make it "A day on the green" and hire Dave Dobbyn and Bic Runga to sing.

One would have thought that almost anything would have been better than nothing at all in February.