Cover image: MĀUI by Freshmans Dance Crew as part of the Measina Festival in December last year. Photo Credit: Pacific Arts - Creative New Zealand Creative New Zealand have announced their support for Aotearoa’s Fringe festivals for three years to develop emerging Pasifika artists. The new collaboration, developed with the festival directors of the Auckland Fringe, Wellington Fringe and the Dunedin Fringe Festival sees an increase in support for Pasifika awards at each festival.
Press Release – Auckland Fringe Festival
After going into lockdown Level 3 on the day of their festival opening,
Auckland Fringe worked quickly last week to support the artists and venues who had to cancel or postpone their events due to the alert level changes.
While some events were able to go ahead with shorter season under Level 2 last week many had to be postponed. Now that Auckland is safely back at Level 1 and events are able to go ahead as planned, Auckland Fringe are pleased to be able to extend their festival dates until Saturday 17 April to accommodate some of the many shows that last week had to be postponed due to COVID restrictions.
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Although they said they were relieved to be in alert level 2 now, they were not out of the woods yet.
The latest level 3 lockdown has interrupted the Pride and Fringe festivals, with thousands of events quickly moved online, rescheduled or cancelled.
Auckland Pride Festival director Max Tweedie said when he watched the announcement, it was a shock. The adrenalin just kicked in, and my head just kicked straight into contingency plans, and I don t think it really sunk in at all at that time until a couple of days. It was our worst nightmare.