Rebecca Malcolm: Top acts on show a coup for city

Rebecca Malcolm.

How good is it to have international acts on stage in Rotorua?

Like their music or not, few can argue that having household names like UB40 performing in Rotorua is a big coup for a city like ours.

Growing up in this town two decades ago, many may have laughed at the concept of having top-quality acts perform at our lakefront.

Rotorua may have felt justifiably ripped off when the city lost the Raggamuffin festival to Auckland -- a move partly blamed on people not supporting the event.

But thanks to the tenacity of Rotorua's events man, the late Peter McLeod, UB40 was lured back to play.

Event organiser Jackie Sanders paid credit to Mr McLeod in our preview before the concert -- saying it was his quiet determination that saw Saturday's concert come to fruition. Without him, not just the Rotorua show but the tour was unlikely to have gone ahead.

While the Rotorua show might not have managed to sell out like some of the others around the country, a crowd of 5000 had event organisers happy and was about 1000 short of capacity.

As a destination we're somewhat spoilt with events -- especially sporting events.

For those who aren't into live music, there's the New Zealand Rugby National Seven's Tournament on this coming weekend and in the next few months people can take their choice of events ranging from the popular Rotorua Bike Festival, Crankworx and Lakeside concert, right through to the city's first Rotorua Summer Seafood Festival.

Now it's up to us to make sure we give them reasons to return -- starting with turning out and supporting what's on in our backyard.