By Tony Wall
Aids charities have yet to receive money raised during last month's Hero Festival and are giving organsers - believed to be facing debts of more than $100,000 - until tomorrow to pay up.
The Hero project is calling on the public to help it out of its financial woes.
Its
trustees went into an emergency meeting last night to discuss finances and creditors have been asked for a 90-day credit period.
Aids and HIV-related charities which were to have benefited from the festival have not received any money. A spokesman for the charities, Keith Marshall, said they had given Hero organisers a Friday deadline to sort out matters and would discuss their next step tomorrow morning.
Charities were to have got 70 per cent of the money collected during the Hero Parade, estimated at $20,000.
The Hero project director, Steve Berry-Smith, said last night that organisers would pay the charities when they could.
The amount raised during the parade - which attracted 200,000 people to Ponsonby Rd - had been "terrible" and he called on the public to donate more money.
The New Zealand Herald understands the shortfall may be more than $100,000, but Mr Berry-Smith said it was too early to set a figure.
The festival was expanded this year and the budget for the parade and dance party alone was $300,000. The cost was to be met by corporate sponsors, party ticket sales, merchandise sales and donations.
The Auckland City Council got behind the parade, donating $15,000.
Mr Berry-Smith said the dance party, where tickets were $65, attracted 3000 people instead of the hoped-for 4000.
There was an $80,000 deficit from the previous year.
Mr Berry-Smith said that like any growing company, Hero would "at some time experience some cash-flow difficulties."
