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Speaker 1: Now onto other matters. The Prime Minister is calling for

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Speaker 1: a change to how we fund major events. He told

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Speaker 1: Ryan Bridge this morning that sporting events and concerts are

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Speaker 1: key to getting the economy back up and running.

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Speaker 2: I really want us to rethink what we do with

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Speaker 2: the Major Events Fund because it takes a while for events.

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Speaker 1: And activity to come to a country.

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Speaker 2: You've actually got to stuff it as a pipeline.

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Speaker 1: Brent eccles is the founder of Ecles Entertainment and a

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Speaker 1: representative for Frontier Touring New Zealand, and Steve Armitag is

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Speaker 1: the CEO of Hospitality New Zealand. We've got both of

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Speaker 1: them with us.

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Speaker 2: High lads, Good Monday, Brent.

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Speaker 1: Is what do we need to rethink about?

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Speaker 3: This?

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Speaker 1: Isn't isn't the problem that actually the fund was working

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Speaker 1: perfectly then we stopped the fund working perfectly well.

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Speaker 3: From a contemporary music perspective, it all sounds good, but

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Speaker 3: they never ever founded anything out of the Major Events

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Speaker 3: Fund and it is only sport.

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Speaker 1: Oh really, we never did any concerts or anything like that.

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Speaker 3: No, no, never.

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Speaker 1: Okay, have you got a problem with us just doing

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Speaker 1: sport out of it?

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Speaker 3: No? I don't. There's quite a long lead time to

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Speaker 3: access the fun and with contemporary music you don't have

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Speaker 3: that lead time. It's pretty it's pretty hard and fast,

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Speaker 3: so you'll never quite be able to qualify. And as

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Speaker 3: I say, the major events fun has been focused on sport,

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Speaker 3: not rock and roll.

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Speaker 1: Do you think that we need to just get it

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Speaker 1: moving faster? Is that the problem?

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Speaker 3: Absolutely? Yeah, absolutely, it's not that hard to do if

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Speaker 3: they have relationships. There's only read two or three promoters

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Speaker 3: who work in that realm, and it's it's pretty easy

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Speaker 3: to get into the pipeline. And actually they're able to

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Speaker 3: pin points in the funds. But the sooner the better.

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Speaker 3: I love the sound of it.

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Speaker 1: How long was it taking break to get the money

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Speaker 1: out of it?

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Speaker 3: Well, I think it was like a three month lead time.

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Speaker 3: It doesn't work for rock and roll. You need it

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Speaker 3: within a month, just by the time, just by the

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Speaker 3: time the show comes on and by the time it

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Speaker 3: goes on, saleses very quick. So you've got to get

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Speaker 3: those things sorted out with budgets on all kinds of

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Speaker 3: agents and managers and all down the chain around the world.

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Speaker 3: You've got to take across the line. So it needs

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Speaker 3: to be the need to put some sort of reserves

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Speaker 3: and money for contemporary music, and then it can just

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Speaker 3: need the access with a good relationship. That's the way

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Speaker 3: to do that.

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Speaker 1: Now, Steve, what's gone wrong here? Because I'm just just

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Speaker 1: from an all climp perspective. We haven't got anything on

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Speaker 1: the calendar and haven't had anything on the calendar since,

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Speaker 1: like seriously since Coldplay, So why Well.

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Speaker 2: First of all, can I just say when I heard

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Speaker 2: this this morning, my first reaction was about time. We've

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Speaker 2: been highlighting the importance of a consistent five events for

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Speaker 2: years and an actual fact, I think this speaks directly

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Speaker 2: to the government's own ambition to double the value of tourism.

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Speaker 2: You need strong demand drivers and events have proven winners

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Speaker 2: in that regard, so that this is a really interesting

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Speaker 2: mindset shift. The argument that the Prime Minister made this

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Speaker 2: morning in support of events was nowhere to be seen

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Speaker 2: earlier this year when we get the America's Cup as

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Speaker 2: a potential option. So it's really interesting to see.

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Speaker 3: How that shift. Well, we were.

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Speaker 2: In with a chance to secure the America's Cup here

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Speaker 2: in New Zealand. The same argument that the Prime Minister

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Speaker 2: was making this morning around the fund that generates the

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Speaker 2: importance of having a consistent pipeline of major events. And

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Speaker 2: the Melbourne comparison was really interesting because he's talking about

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Speaker 2: really large, global scale of events being hosted every quarter.

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Speaker 2: That's a great aim, but we know where near having

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Speaker 2: the funding in place to be able to deliver that.

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Speaker 1: What is tell me, Steve if I'm imagining it? But

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Speaker 1: it felt to me as if we had a bunch

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Speaker 1: of stuff on the calendar and then the Major Events

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Speaker 1: Fund stopped funding things or did I just imagine that.

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Speaker 3: There's a couple of.

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Speaker 2: Layers to this. That a lot of funding used to

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Speaker 2: come through from Auckland Council through its council controlled organization,

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Speaker 2: and of course the councils had to pull back a

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Speaker 2: significant amount of funding. So the approach to major events

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Speaker 2: sort of prior to COVID was usually it was co

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Speaker 2: funded between the council and central government through the New

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Speaker 2: Zealand Major Events Fund. With the city under pressure, they

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Speaker 2: haven't been able to put together a fund fighting fund

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Speaker 2: for large scale major events.

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Speaker 1: So that's the money was money that dried up and

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Speaker 1: that's what it was.

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Speaker 2: Hence the argument for the accommodation levy.

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Speaker 1: Okay, Now, Steve, have you got a better example than

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Speaker 1: the America's Cup, because that's a distinct example. I'm tired

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Speaker 1: of talking here.

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Speaker 2: Well, yeah, if you go back to your recent history,

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Speaker 2: you know, we had the FIFA Women's World Cup here,

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Speaker 2: We've had we've co hosted a Cricket World Cup. I

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Speaker 2: know Brent's talking about music being different to sport, but

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Speaker 2: Auckland and New Zealand in particular was a custom every

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Speaker 2: year to having a global event here. Yes, and Brent's

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Speaker 2: absolutely right. Sometimes for an event like FIFA, that's sixty

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Speaker 2: seven years of hard work to get that over the

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Speaker 2: line before it's delivered here. And at the moment we'd

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Speaker 2: be starting largely from scratch, but we need some certainty

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Speaker 2: of funding to be able to get ourselves in front

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Speaker 2: of the queue.

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Speaker 1: Okay, Brent, if you could pick, if you could pick

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Speaker 1: just one event that you would like to bring here,

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Speaker 1: what would it be? Taylor Swift?

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Speaker 3: Ah? Well, you know we could dream about that. I

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Speaker 3: don't think that's ever going to work actually, but you

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Speaker 3: know that's been banning around a lot. There are a

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Speaker 3: lot of other artists of the will be great to

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Speaker 3: bring here.

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Speaker 1: Then, who.

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Speaker 3: Paul McCartney, how's that?

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Speaker 1: Can I still travel a yeah.

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Speaker 3: Yeah. How about Bruce Springsteen? How about that? Yeah?

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Speaker 1: Been there, done that though, haven't we?

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Speaker 3: How about the Eagles? Always great though. I mean, you know,

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Speaker 3: first class international entertainment and it works well in the stadium. Yeah,

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Speaker 3: there's not a lot, there's not a lot around, but

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Speaker 3: the stuff around is good.

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Speaker 1: So you know, what do you reckon, Steve? Don't say

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Speaker 1: the America's Cup again.

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Speaker 3: Uh?

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Speaker 4: Look, large scale mass participation events are really good. We're

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Speaker 4: the World Masters Games here not so long ago. And

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Speaker 4: the good thing about that is that people stay for

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Speaker 4: longer too. They come and they compete in their in

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Speaker 4: their particular discipline, and then on average they were staying

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Speaker 4: up to two weeks either side. So you know, the

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Speaker 4: more that we can see that spend extend out across

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Speaker 4: a period of time, the better.

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Speaker 1: Hey, guys, thank you very much. I think we're all

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Speaker 1: on board with the same idea. It's good to see

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Speaker 1: the Prime ministers as well. Brent Eccles, Steve Armitage Brents

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Speaker 1: obviously with Eccles Entertainment, the founder and Frontier Touring now

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Speaker 1: and then Steve Armitage is with Hospitality in New Zealand.

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