Taupō Santa Parade cancelled for first time in more than 40 years

Santa will have to go without a parade in Taupō this year. Photo / NZME

While Santa will still be stuffing stockings this Christmas, his annual parade in Taupō is not going ahead.

Due to alert level restrictions and the ongoing uncertainty caused by Covid-19, the Christmas in the Park stable of events, including the Mitre 10 Mega Santa Parade, the Bluelight/Mitre 10 Mega Trolley Derby and the Christmas in the Park events have been cancelled.

Organiser Locky McNeill says the decision, made about a month ago, was a tough one.

"There are multiple things we have to navigate and we just had to make a decision. There are other places, like Rotorua, are shifting their parades to showgrounds and things. We looked at running the parade around the outside of Owen Delany Park but there's no booking available.

"It's the first time ever the parade has been cancelled, that's over 40 years. It's tough because you spend a lot of time organising it anyway, then have to make the horrible decision to cancel it.

"I've been bleeding Christmas for years, it's what I love doing. This is the first non-Christmas I've done since I moved to Taupō, but everyone is going through it at the moment."

McNeill says the team of organisers "fully plan to be back in 2022".

"Something we were looking at doing this year, which we might do next year, is to run the events over multiple days, rather than just one day.

"If you go to the trolley derby as a family and spend the whole afternoon there, that's your time slot gone and you'll miss out on the others. We're working on turning it into more of a festival than a one-day event."