Posts by Rich of Observationz
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The all whites are mostly poms, right? At least, I was told that by a bloke in a pub in Christchurch. They have a quota of no more than 3 players that don't sound like they've just stepped out of Coro.
Winning formula
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I come from the point of view of having worked on smaller festivals and dance parties.
Basically, the carnival needs to provide organisation (telling people where to go for the parade) and stages for the bands. None of that is very expensive, especially if you get volunteers to help out. (If people start expecting to be salaried, of course, or if you hire a large paid crew, then costs will shoot up).
A stage and PA like the one on Swan Lane would be about $20k, max.
Apart from that, it's all the crowd control and enforcement that send the costs up.
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Che, I suspect that a lot of the $500k is money that goes straight back to the council for "services", or pays for things that are required by council and government.
If you just announced the roads were closed and anyone trying to drive them would be blocked by 150,000 people in crazy costumes, then invited said people to come and party, you could probably have a pretty cheap event, with volunteer clear-up.
But the council insist on cones, bouncers, fences around any area where kids might come into contact with the Evil Drink, etc.
Cost of putting on Carnival: $50k
Cost of nanny state: $450k -
don't you hate the council?
Maybe if it didn't consist of council officers with a middle-class, suburbanite agenda, a mayor with a middle-class, suburbanite agenda, and a couple of allegedly Green councillors who've been "assimilated" into the "constructive" side of council, then we wouldn't.
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Cuba Street Carnival - clarification
For those not wishing to read the full version, I have a summary.
We won't be funding Carnival next year. But we're happy to spend $75k on setting up a pointless bureaucracy that will totally fail to hold a carnival.
Way to go.
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It's about Kerry of Tawa.
She runs Wellington as a shopping mall for her suburban constituency.
Who are a lot more into rugby than half-naked samba dancers. Yup, we could afford a carnival, rugby (though the rugby is happening anyway, charging $$$ a ticket and making fucktonnes of money for the IRB, so why the council needs to spend *anything* on it escapes me) *and* libraries. We could especially afford this stuff if we weren't spending a fortune on building highways for suburbanites SUVs, and tearing up pedestrian areas to provide room for buses (instead of taking space from said SUVs).
We do have the hope that if we can mobilise the people of Wellington to actually vote and leave Kerry firmly off our STV ballot papers, we might see a better headline in Septermber.
Carnival reinstated. Kerry cancelled
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I think that a licensing fee will be coming back in some form or other for FTA TV, and I too am completely willing to pay it.
How would that work? Video entertainment nowadays gets to people through a whole range of channels - would any kind of device (computer, smartphone, TV) result in having to pay a levy? It'd basically be a poll tax, so why not just fund public service broadcasting out of general taxation?
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Someone mentioned 8-track. You can still buy these, some classic car owners like to listen to music while keeping their Mustang or Ferrari fully original.
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Did that half a mil for a Banksy include the building it was on?
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Isn't truth a defence anymore? The letter to Dunne inviting him to put his "expense claim" in is widely available.