New Plymouth District Council

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Angus & Julia Stone with Jack River and Bic Runga 31 March 2019 31 Mar 2019 TSB Bowl of Brooklands Australian folk rock/indie sensations Angus and Julia Stone are jetting their way to New Plymouth this March to headline a concert series at the TSB Bowl of Brooklands. The Harvest Moon concert series features a fashionably eclectic line up including Australian artist Jack River and local treasure Bic Runga. Angus and Julia Stone are major emerging names in the Australian music scene and released their fourth studio album ‘Snow’ last year which features the lead single of the same name and the follow-up track ‘Chateau’. The duo then followed that up with a hugely successful sold-out tour of Australia. Taking place on Sunday 31 March at the TSB Bowl of Brooklands, Harvest Moon adds to the Bowl’s stellar international line up this summer including A Summer’s Day Live featuring TOTO, Jefferson Starship and Dragon on 11 January, The Hollies on 1 March and WOMAD between 15-17 March. A strictly limited number of discounted early bird tickets are available from 12pm, Friday 14 December until 9am, Monday 17 December (unless allocation sold out prior) and is available for those signed up to the New Plymouth Event Venues database. General public ticket sales begin at 9am on Monday 17 December. Tickets can be purchased at the TSB Showplace box office, over the phone on 0800 TICKETEK, or online at www.ticketek.co.nz.

New lights and rock in the New Year with TSB Festival of Lights 14 December 2018 NPDC’s TSB Festival of Lights will shine even brighter this season with 10 brand new light installations and family fun and live music till midnight on New Year’s Eve. Another first for the free summer festival in New Plymouth’s iconic Pukekura Park is great news for foodies, with local food trucks in a new festival hub on ‘Light Bites’ evenings. The summer of festival fun starts on 16 December when the lights are turned on during the popular Christmas at the Bowl. The lights will be shining every night including Christmas Day until February 3. This season’s packed programme includes more than 50 performances including international, national and local performers, daytime activities for kids and families with the Summer Scene team and the return of Summer Seniors featuring a range of events for older folk. NPDC Recreation and Culture Manager Teresa Turner said this season’s festival promises to be one of the best yet with something for all residents and visitors to the district. “Our Events team listened to feedback from recent festivals and have pulled out all the stops to put on more lights and entertainment and the Light Bites evenings will help pull in even more visitors,” she said. “NPDC has had requests for something on New Year’s Eve so we’ve put together a fantastic night with events for kids and adults and a chance to see in the New Year in style in our wonderful Pukekura Park. This festival is a key part of how we are Building a Lifestyle Capital.” The Lights All Night New Year’s Eve event will see the lights kept on until midnight, a storybook character evening for kids with a 9pm countdown, glow lawn bowls and a silent disco for adults and music from Dtomp, Ed Pool and The Slacks. There are 17 light installations spread across the park including 10 new light features. These include interactive displays such as Light Bells where festival-goers pull ropes to move lights to the sound of church bells and Fountain of Colour, a kiosk where visitors control a light show on Fountain Lake. The new festival hub will be the venue for Light Bites as well as the information point for festival-goers. Also new in 2018/19 is Tiny Town, a 10-foot shipping container which has been converted into a small theatre. NPDC’s Parks team has also given Pukekura Park a spruce-up with a revamped and extended area outside the Tea House, new shade sails over the main playground to keep kids sun-safe and new pipes and lights to rejuvenate the QEII fountain. Last season the TSB Festival of Lights brought in more than 125,000 visitors over seven weeks and saw a 20% rise in visitors from outside the region. Figures from Venture Taranaki revealed the value added to the Taranaki economy from the festival was nearly $5million in 2017/18. For more information, head to festivaloflights.nz 10 new light installations Seed, co-designed by New Plymouth’s Jasmine Grace and fellow Massey University students Rachel Neser and Molly Brankin. This design has featured at LUX Light Festival Wellington and was inspired by a Kendrick Lamar lyric. Alpha Beta Gamma, by Wellington artist Trish Campbell features giant colourful totem poles which light up the Main Lake island. Strung Out, designed by Carmen Rogers, reimagined by Che Rogers. This is the first time this has been installed above ground. Nebula Now, designed and created by Arielle Walker and Liam Mullins. Nebula Now was inspired by Arielle’s childhood memories of walking through the festival and looking up at the beautiful lights. It is made of Perspex and has more than 100 keychain links. Seasons, designed and created by Toulouse Group and MJF Lighting with a composition by Jeremy Cullen. This installation combines music and light to give audiences an experience of the four seasons. Iro, designed and created by Toulouse Group. Glowing balls of light enhance the Japanese Hillside. Eelectric, designed and created by Adam Walker from Toulouse Group. This design features LED eels swimming through the Main Lake. Wisteria, designed and created by Shannon Novak. Shannon’s design transforms the Tea House on the Lake into a giant lantern. Fountain of Colour, designed and created by Toulouse Group. This interactive installation with a kiosk allows festival-goers to control the light show on Fountain Lake. Light Bells, created by Thomas Press and brought to life by Toulouse Group. Another interactive installation, festival-goers get to pull suspended ropes to create different church bell sounds with lights moving up and down. Festival facts The lighting route is 3.5 kilometres of walkways through Pukekura Park. The lights are on for 49 nights. More than 22 staff and volunteers work behind the scenes each night at the festival. It takes five weeks to install route lighting, speciality light installations and cabling through the park for the festival. Last season’s festival added nearly $5 million in value to the Taranaki economy and brought in 9,600 visitors to New Plymouth. More than 55 members of the community have volunteered their time to help festival visitors find their way around the event.

50-page ex-Cyclone Gita report publicly released 18 December 2018 An NPDC review into the response to February’s water outage following ex-Cyclone Gita has made six major recommendations for improvement and 22 minor recommendations. The review, which was peer-reviewed by Wellington Water, has found NPDC’s response was rapid, effective and no notable failures were found. NPDC Chief Executive Craig Stevenson said ex-Cyclone Gita was one of the most powerful storms on record to hit Taranaki. “The winds during the February cyclone reached 104km/h, the third highest in Taranaki since records began in 1972. I want to again apologise to everyone for the inconvenience the disruption to our water supply caused. We’re releasing our 50-page incident report publicly which includes some useful findings that we’re taking on board about our complex water network that features more than 800 kilometres of pipes ranging in age from near new, to more than 100 years old,” says Mr Stevenson. Mayor of New Plymouth District Neil Holdom says he’d like to acknowledge the community spirit during the event. “Our ‘can-do-attitude’, community spirit and ability to help each other during the water outage in February, is one of the many reasons why I love this place. As a result of our experience dealing with ex-Cyclone Gita, we asked the public during our 10-Year Plan consultation if we should invest more in our water infrastructure. The answer was a resounding yes, so we’ve listened and are investing an extra $44 million in water network resilience over the next decade,” says Mayor Holdom. The report’s six major recommendations are: an adjustment of future operations and maintenance budgets a study of appropriate infrastructure resiliency levels a study into raw water sources for contingency use risk assessment of water connections and installation of backflow protection devices at key connections a review of all asset management data an update of NPDC’s emergency plans. The pipe bridge that was hit by the tree during the cyclone has been permanently repaired. NPDC has inspected more than 10,000 trees across the district since February and less than 0.1% - or just five trees - have been scheduled for removal. Fast facts Around 10,000 homes were without water for approximately three days and some 26,000 properties were issued a boil water notice for a further seven days. There were no instances of water-related sickness during this period. Once water supply was restored, during the three days of testing the number of water quality samples taken represented an approximate 400% increase on the routine sampling taken during normal operations. The economic impact on the community has been estimated at $4.5million. A copy of the incident report can be found on our reports web page.

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