Fran O'Sullivan: Make streets party central

Let's just abandon this mad plan for a party central on Queens Wharf and invite next year's Rugby World Cup revellers out into the streets to enjoy Auckland's fabulous environs.

And let's get some focus on what matters - showcasing the best of Auckland so when the eyes of the world do stare our way it's not at a booze barn on the water.

It's now 10 months since Prime Minister John Key announced his Government's plan to pop a party central on the downtown Auckland wharf. Typically - for Auckland - the proposal has gone round in circles.

Grand plans for a wharf-based event venue alongside a new cruise terminal have been all but dropped. The latest incarnation is an architecturally designed upmarket tent. The cup itself is now less than 18 months away.

At this point, the question surely is: why bother?

What the tent will do is corral the fans away from the many bars and eateries that already throng the waterfront at the Britomart, Princes Wharf, Viaduct Harbour and the rapidly developing Wynyard Quarter area. These businesses, already paying rates and tax, deserve to make as much money as they can from hosting the visitors, instead of having to compete against a Government-backed venture. That's just another version of public-sector crowdout or an opportunity for the official cup sponsors to cream it at the expense of other businesses.

If Auckland wants to put on a show and attract repeat business from the estimated 60,000 visitors the cup is expected to bring to town, there are better ways to do it.

Most cities try to ensure that the carnival spills into the streets.

In 2006, I took my mother, Alison, to Europe so she could undertake her OE. She'd been dropping increasingly less subtle hints for some years about coming along as my paid assistant on my frequent China excursions ("I can do shorthand still Frances - and besides the Chinese venerate their elderly").

So, a deal was cut. If she made it to 80 in good health, I would invite her to come with me on a long-planned European journalism jaunt.

Alison took tourist side trips in Britain while I did my London interviews. We then detoured off to Germany to experience THE World Cup. I like the pace of football. It is a game of brain. Not the unremitting world of brawn on brawn and dropkicks that Kiwi-style rugby seems to have become. Berlin's fan-fest area was the wonderful avenue through the Tiergarten, from the Brandenburg Gate through to the Victory column.

There were multiple giant screens for the fans to congregate in front of. It was in the open air and fans freely roved between the gardens and the fan zone. There were sandcastle sculptures, ferris wheels and much more.

Similar fan zones were sprinkled throughout Germany at the other 11 cup destinations.

Memorably, my mother was adopted by a bunch of young Aussies who plonked her in the midst of their stand to watch the thrilling match between Australia and Italy on the widescreen directly outside the Brandenburg Gate. Australia lost - but it was a memory that as a family we will continue to talk about and treasure.

And in Berlin, we found a capital city determined to showcase its culture: projects to rebuild many of the old museums and auditoriums that used to reside behind the Iron Curtain but come at a huge cost that has threatened to make the city bankrupt. There was the Holocaust memorial diagonally across from Norman Foster's redesigned Reichstag. The huge book sculpture that reminded visitors - from afar and domestically - of authors like Goethe who represent Germany's high cultural traditions.

Outside one museum was E=MC2 with no obvious irony that Albert Einstein, who left Germany before World War II to escape Hitler's reign of terror against the Jews, never went back to his homeland.

There was stylish cabaret and musical shows, scientific exhibitions and plenty on Germany's business opportunities.

The cultural events were top-class and whetted my appetite to travel there again.

Surveys now show many Aucklanders want the waterfront and the CBD to be the centrepiece of the city's Rugby World Cup celebrations.

One survey showed strong support for live screenings of matches (81 per cent) and cultural events (62 per cent). Nearly half the respondents (42 per cent) said the CBD/waterfront was their preferred location for the cup events, while just over a third of people wanted to see celebrations in a park in their area.

This demonstrates Aucklanders are eminently more sensible on this score than the politicians with their cargo cult mentality.

There's been plenty of focus this week on how smaller Auckland businesses can profit from the cup.

But alarmingly, very little at either national or local level to demonstrate that there is even a plan to showcase the best of what New Zealand - and particularly Auckland - has to offer for the longer term.

Time for New Zealand and Auckland to get on with it.