Why Fieldays is shining the red alert on the events industry

Fieldays 2018. Photo / File

The Mystery Creek Events Centre will light up red tonight to show support for the event industry, after it was hit hard by Covid-19 and mass gathering restrictions.

Venues from over 25 cities worldwide are taking part in the #WeMakeEvents movement, with events professionals lighting up their spaces or symbols of their businesses.

Across the Waikato, a collective of events professionals will be uniting to light up their spaces in red as an act of localised solidarity.

Mystery Creek Events Centre, X-Site Event Hire and Riverlea Theatre will all be lit up with the help of SBI Productions, who are also lighting their own site.

This year the Southern Hemisphere's largest field days was moved online due to Covid-19, a move which affected hundreds of businesses.

"As the saying goes, you don't know what you've got until its gone" New Zealand National Fieldays Society chief executive Peter Nation said in a statement.

"The red light has been put on events across the world and behind every event is a huge supply chain of businesses that have been equally devastated by the effects of Covid-19. We don't want to lose more than we already have which is why we'll be going red today."

Fieldays contributed "significant money" to New Zealand's economy, and also provided 2000 fulltime jobs, Nation told The Muster's Andy Thompson.

Listen to Peter Nation's full interview with The Muster's Andy Thompson below:

Nation said had a quip ready those who asked him what the red colour meant.

"That's actually the colour of most of our bank accounts," he joked.

On a more sombre note, Nation said the red alert highlighted the "seriousness of where the industry sits".

"We haven't seen income come into our bank accounts for seven or eight months and for a lot of businesses that's not sustainable."

Ultimately, the events industry was important to all Kiwis, Nation said, and he encouraged people to get behind the #WeMakeEvents movement.

"The events industry in New Zealand in particular is a big part of our DNA ... whether it's rugby, a music concert, a field day ... it's very important for part of our wellbeing and our mental health and our connection with each other," he said.

"I'd love people to support us through social media and just be aware of the importance of the events industries to their communities."

Head to Facebook to find out more about the We Make Events - Aotearoa New Zealand.

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