KEY POINTS:
You've got to be quick to survive in Auckland. One week Queen St is festooned with big red lanterns to welcome in Chinese New Year. Then down they come and up go the Auckland Festival banners. Now the banners seem long gone - though it's only a week
- and the city council has redecorated the whole street with Jafa orange barricades.
By the cratered desolation of the main street, one suspects they could be rehearsing for the apocalypse.
In other words, we're quite a busy wee place. Which I rather like. But it does provide something of a challenge for someone like Auckland festival director David Malacari whose job is to try to imprint festivalitis into all of us for a two or three week stretch every two years.
In a smaller town like Wellington, festival fever seems to grip the citizenry for weeks before the event. Enthusiasts draw up complicated timetables of their event-going and mail off ticket orders with months to spare.
As far afield as Auckland, some of us have been known to be caught up in this excitement. And afterwards, there are the weeks of inquests and general winding down.
But here, 10 days after the Auckland Philharmonia Orchestra and Gareth Farr et al brought AK07 to a thunderous finale, the whole event seems long gone and far away. Everyone has moved on.
With the exception, that is, of Mr Malacari who lives in hope that, given time and sweet-talk, we Aucklanders might eventually become a little more like the Wellingtonians.
To him, it's just a matter of persuading everyone in the region to succumb to the festival muse. "We certainly have the 'arts aware' [population] knowing the festival is on and really enjoying it. The challenge next time is to move further and beyond that circle to greater Auckland. That's our challenge and our aim."
His ambition is to achieve crossover. To get us out of our comfort zones and graze in artistic paddocks we wouldn't normally be seen in.
Last month, drama lovers and young Maori ensured sell-out audiences for Taki Rua Productions' play about the Maori Battalion in Italy, and classical music lovers packed the Town Hall for performances of Mahler and Takemitsu.
The support by "niche audiences" for their kind of thing was fantastic, says the director. But his ambition is that when the music stops in the future, we will all rush to a seat in another hall and try something new.
"That's about branding and people trusting the Auckland festival brand."
He says that might take another two or three festivals to achieve.
But to "completely capture the imagination of the city" - as do established festivals in other cities - takes more than the smell of the oily rag that AK07 ran on.
"We still need to convince people that an arts festival requires significant public funding and that public funding will return that money in spades in terms of economic impact."
But "if you don't spend the money up front you're not going to get a festival that really serves Auckland properly".
Mr Malacari is bashing against the same funding wall that every quality Auckland arts organisation eventually comes up against. Like the others, he is trying to provide a service for the whole region, but only Auckland City ratepayers are willing to pay up. The citizens of the other regional cities and districts are freeloading.
Estimates vary, but well over 100,000 people turned up to the spectacular opening fireworks display at the Auckland Domain. Many came from outside Auckland City and bludged a fabulous free time off the central city's ratepayers.
The festival is one of the institutions that stand to benefit if plans for legislation providing for the equitable funding of regional organisations is passed by parliamentarians in the coming months.
Unfortunately, many small-minded local politicians outside Auckland City, fearing they might lose their sinecures at the upcoming elections, would rather the arts withered and died than they be seen supporting culture with their ratepayers' money. Surveys suggest these ratepayers are willing to pay their share. They should speak up.
