Art Deco Trust festival director Glen Pickering is stoked at the international numbers at this year's festival. Photo / File
Art Deco Trust festival director Glen Pickering is stoked at the international numbers at this year's festival. Photo / File
Deco success hinges on community support, says Art Deco Trust festival director Glen Pickering. He chats to Mark Story while the Tremains Art Deco Festival is in full swing.
What's your favourite Deco building in Napier? I love the Municipal Theatre, a beautiful building inside and out with many stories totell.
Why is this festival such a huge success and how has it captured the popular imagination? We have something that is very special and unique. Here in Hawke's Bay, we create a fun and engaging experience around our heritage so that the whole community can come together and celebrate it. It really comes down to the support of that community over the long history of the festival that makes it such a success. It is definitely something you need to experience to understand, people that come here just fall in love with the fun and frivolity of a city transformed back to an era of incredible music, glamorous fashion, beautiful architecture and stunning cars.
What's the highlight for you so far? Definitely the Junior Gatsby Picnic, a thousand local kids coming together to celebrate their heritage whilst also having a rocking good time was just awesome to see. This is the first year we have held a dedicated event like this and I assure you it will be back again in 2019!
Can you guess as to how many overseas visitors the event has lured? Difficult to put a number on it this early in the piece but I would say somewhere between 5000 and 7000 over the course of the event.
Where do you see the festival in 10 years time? You will always have your old favourites like the Gatsby Picnic, Vintage Car Parade and Soap Box Derby, and I would hope that we have continued to add value each and every year, making sure it remains a world class, community-focused event that is accessible to and enjoyed by everyone in our local community as well as our national and international audiences.
