Fiesta of Lights to open at Tomoana Showgrounds in Hastings

Sapphire Paul and Daniel Morrison setting up light installations for the Fiesta of Lights, nightly December 17-January 8 at Tomoana Showgrounds, Hastings. Photo / Paul Taylor

A Hawke’s Bay festive season phenomenon held every year for a quarter of a century is all wired-up with its 40km of rope lights and ready to go at the flick of a switch this weekend at Tomoana Showgrounds in Hastings.

The brainchild of performance and entertainment production legend Te Rangi Huata, the Fiesta of Lights starts on Saturday night in the showgrounds’ Waikoko Gardens. It runs 9pm-11pm each night until January 8, including Christmas Eve, Christmas Day and New Year’s Eve.

It was first held as a December 1998 test run for celebrations 12 months later marking the end of the millennium and welcoming in the year 2000.

Huata never intended it becoming an annual event, but soon found himself and his crews putting together and running the three-week event, even through pandemic limitations.

With now 18,000 to 19,000 people each year, he says it couldn’t run any less than the 22 nights.

It now takes about four weeks of preparation, including at least a fortnight off-site before moving onto the showgrounds, where this year there will be 56 light displays. In the early days (or nights) it was estimated about 200,000 lights were flickering into the New Year, but Huata gave up counting a long time ago.

Some of the most important work is done during the year getting the funds together and making sure the cost at the gate remains reasonable.

The Hastings District Council contributes $12,000, the Lotteries Commission $7000, and gaming trusts have also been among the contributors.

Huata’s business also sells fireworks as a fundraiser for a show on December 31, with a fireworks display from 9.45pm, for families with young children who can’t stay awake for the regional New Year’s Eve celebration in Napier at midnight.

It keeps the cost to $7 an adult, but without the support it would be $20-$25.

“That would just be unrealistic,” he says.

Despite the intricate degree of preparation, he says a hired miniature ride-on train with a few lights strung along it consistently rates as the most popular single aspect of the Fiesta of Lights.

Most of the crew, including six young people as school holidays workers, will be there every night, as was the late Billy Glover, for 14 years.

“He passed away during last year’s preparations, so this year will be a bit poignant, our first year, really, without him,” Huata says.

Next year’s event will officially be the 25th – given that the 1998 fiesta was mainly to make sure it would work – but Huata has no idea if it’ll ever come to an end.

He says the “main issue” is the rain, though there have been a few blackouts, usually of minimal duration. Although one opening night had to be cancelled because someone had thrown a distributor box into the lake earlier in the day.

“I think it will keep going until no one wants to come anymore.”