Rotorua Lakes Council’s trial of moving the city’s Night Market from the central city to Kuirau Park has sparked concern among stallholders and retailers, with some reporting sharp drops in trade and reduced foot traffic in the CBD.
The council began the trial in October to save $200,000 in costs, enable earlier summer trading, and address health and safety concerns.
Councillor Robert Lee told Local Democracy Reporting that he intended to file a notice of motion at next week’s council meeting asking for consideration to end the trial after hearing “concerning feedback” from stallholders and retailers.
“The purpose of the market was to help revitalise the CBD,” Lee said.
“Putting the market into Kuirau Park does not achieve that purpose.”
Some retailers said the CBD had “become a ghost town” on Thursday evenings since the trial began, according to Lee.
Farnoud Rahimi Mansour’s Cowboy’s Roast House business operates as a shop on Tutanekai St and as a stall at the Night Market.
He told Local Democracy Reporting he was “not happy” with the change and cited wind cancellations, poor parking, safety concerns, change of opening times from 5pm-9pm to 4pm-8pm and reduced foot traffic, particularly from tourists.
He said he had provided feedback but felt ignored.
A qualified structural engineer from Iran, Rahimi Mansour started his hospitality business after redundancy cost him a work sponsorship visa.
But a drop in customers and recent wind cancellations had left him scrambling, he said.
“I want to ask them who is going to feed my family for this week?
“I don’t have any fixed salary, I rely on this income and lots of people also rely on this market.”
He said some of the businesses on Tutanekai St were suffering from the loss of foot traffic.
Xtreme Souvenirs owner Hasmukh Lal used to keep his shop open later because of the influx of people on a Thursday night, but not anymore.
“The street has gone dead on Thursday night,” Lal said.
“After five, it becomes like a ghost street.”
NZ Crepes operator Justin Smith said he appreciated the council was looking for alternatives to ensure the Night Market continued and praised the venue, which “looks great”.
However, the reduced hours and lack of foot traffic from the hotels had left him with a 30% drop in trade.
“It was worth a shot, but it’s just a little bit far out,” he said.
“I think everyone’s got the same consensus of opinion. It’s better than nothing, and we really need it, but there has been a sizeable drop in sales.”
He suggested the Village Green as a better location.
In May, councillors instructed council chief executive Andrew Moraes “to investigate other options to potentially run the Night Market by another operator or at an alternative location”. A trial option was then initiated by Moraes during the pre-election period.
At last week’s council meeting, Lee quizzed Moraes on his definition of “potentially” and “investigate”, saying he was surprised that the decision was made without input from councillors.
“I feel this was a decision where council staff entered into governance,” Lee said.
Councillor Fisher Wang also said the trial felt “a bit strange”, given that only 11% of respondents to Rotorua’s 2025-26 Annual Plan supported a location shift.
Meanwhile, councillor Ben Sandford hoped for seasonal context to be applied to further data-gathering and that stallholders would have their feedback separated out for proper analysis.
Both Wang and Sandford were sceptical about the suitability of Kuirau Park.
At the same meeting, Mayor Tania Tapsell said the trial was only an investigation into potential options. She said the council had received “significant positive feedback” about the trial so far.
“A final recommendation will come back to us in due course,” she said.
Moraes told councillors the directive he received was “to save money”, not “to improve the market”, and the trial was designed to identify potential cost reductions.
During the election period, he interpreted “investigate” to include “gathering data”, he said.
He assumed responsibility for initiating the trial.
“If there was grey area about activating a trial, that was on me, not staff.
“It was my decision.”
He said the May resolution “did not preclude an alternative location” and in fact “specifically included it”.
Safety was also a factor, with “one incident and several near misses” as well as a global trend for vehicle-related incidents at markets. In June, an incident involving a car near the Night Market left a woman seriously injured.
Moraes said a full decision paper would be provided early next year.
Mathew Nash is a Local Democracy Reporting journalist based at the Rotorua Daily Post. He has previously written for SunLive, been a regular contributor to RNZ and was a football reporter in the UK for eight years.
- LDR is local body journalism co-funded by RNZ and NZ On Air.