Rotorua Lakes councillors seek assurance Sir Howard Morrison Centre sound issues won’t repeat after last-minute cancellation

The entrance of Rotorua's Sir Howard Morrison Centre. Photo / Megan Wilson

Steps are being taken to avoid a repeat of a high-profile event cancellation at Rotorua’s new performing arts centre, city councillors have been assured.

The Sir Howard Morrison Centre had been closed for five years for a $36.5 million makeover and earthquake strengthening. However, one of two ticketed gala events to celebrate its grand re-opening in February was cancelled when technical difficulties could not be resolved.

The Whakatuheratanga Nui gala event was called off at the last minute and resulted in $22,000 worth of tickets being refunded. There were also some sound-related issues at the first ticketed event, the night before, on February 16.

At a Rotorua Lakes Council committee meeting on Wednesday, council organisational enablement deputy chief executive Thomas Collé said staff worked to resolve the issues for the next night’s performance and artists asked for their own sound engineer to have access to the systems.

Work to reconfigure the sound controls to be adjusted from the stage began at 2pm, with the show scheduled to start at 7pm.

The change caused two audio devices on the network to create a “broadcast storm” of continuously looping data. This built up over time and led to all connected devices failing.

It took time for the system failure to begin, so the fault was not immediately linked back to the reconfiguration.

At the same time, the centre’s technical team were informed the council network was down, and they noticed council IT staff making a change in the patch room.

This, along with factors like fatigue and staff unfamiliarity with equipment, made the issue difficult to diagnose.

The system became overloaded, with the theatrical lighting systems the first to go.

Collé said the team worked methodically to bring systems back online, but could not fully do so and the decision was made to cancel.

Councillor Gregg Brown asked for assurance the issue would not happen at future events.

“Can our community rely on that venue doing what we expected it to?”

Community wellbeing deputy chief executive Anaru Pewhairangi said that was “certainly the intent” and lessons were learned.

Mitigation included improving communication between the council IT team and centre staff, job training, network access changes and documentation improvements. There would also be no systems changes allowed close to showtime.

Pewhairangi said there was no one “more gutted” than the centre staff. He thanked Rotorua Mayor Tania Tapsell for visiting the “very distraught” team on the night.

Councillor Don Paterson attended the first gala event and said it was an “awesome” show, and was saddened those on Friday did not get to see Rotorua talent showcased.

The centre had 24 shows, conferences and other events booked over the next two months.

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