Host town troupe Ngati Kahungunu Ki Heretaunga, one of 47 groups preparing for Te Matatini 2017 in Hastings this week. Photo/Supplied
Host town troupe Ngati Kahungunu Ki Heretaunga, one of 47 groups preparing for Te Matatini 2017 in Hastings this week. Photo/Supplied
Huge number of Hawke's Bay people are expected at Te Matatini as kapa haka springs another giant festival on Hawke's Bay this week.
Hot on the heels of Napier's Art Deco Weekend, the Te Matatini crowds in Hastings expected to top 50,000 through the Hawke's Bay Regional Sports Park gatesfrom Thursday to Sunday will include holders of about 20,000 discounted tickets on sold by Ngati Kahungunu Iwi Inc.
The arrangement was made to make sure members of the third-largest iwi, which has 24,000 registered members, get to take part in the spectacle, a biennial festival which is effectively a World championship of kapa haka with a record 47 teams and over 2800 performers, some from Australia.
By late last week about 18,000 of the discounted tickets had been sold by the iwi, some also going to visitors from Australia, coming home to see the festival held in Hawke's Bay for the first time since the seventh "Polynesian" festival was held at the Hawke's Bay Showgrounds in 1983. Complimentary tickets have also been made available to low-income whanau and the elderly.
A large number of marae are being used to host the groups, which include sole Hastings-area group Ngati Kahungunu ki Heretaunga, and two others from around Hawke's Bay, Porangahau-based Tamatea Arikinui and Wairoa's Te Rerenga Kotuku.
Many are expected to arrive tomorrow for powhiri with their marae hosts, ahead of the festival Pohiri at McLean Park, Napier on Wednesday, from 11am.
Performances start soon after karakia at 8am on Thursday, with some rain expected, according to current Metservice forecasts, although overcast weather with light winds is expected to prevail through most of Te Matatini and the performances of the nine finalists on Sunday.
Te Matatini performers have come from 14 regional competitions since Te Matatini 2015 in Christchurch and iwi communications adviser Ruth Wong says only "the best" will perform this week.
But they're also getting the best, with the iwi having worked with horticultural, industrial and business partners to supply thousands of kilos of food and produce, including apples, squash, sweetcorn, kumara, fish and meat to assist marae and other hosts in feeding the visitors.
It's the second of three big festivals in the Napier-Hastings area in less than a month, after Art Deco Weekend which, despite wet weather, drew huge crowds, including more than 2000 on an Auckland-Napier-Auckland cruise and to be followed by the Horse of the Year Show at the showgrounds in Hastings on March 7-12.
Other big events in Hawke's Bay in late summer are the national Rodeo Championships in Wairoa on March 24-25 and the Dixie Chicks' Mission Concert on April 8.
