{"id":129987,"date":"2025-11-11T18:53:10","date_gmt":"2025-11-11T18:53:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/129987\/"},"modified":"2025-11-11T18:53:10","modified_gmt":"2025-11-11T18:53:10","slug":"fritter-festival-paused-for-2026-as-costs-rise-and-ticket-sales-fall","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/129987\/","title":{"rendered":"Fritter Festival paused for 2026 as costs rise and ticket sales fall"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Food,Food, wine and beer are staples of Northland’s Fritter Festival. Photo \/ NZME<\/p>\n

Northland Events Centre Trust chief executive Brent Markwick said a conservative approach was needed to ensure the event\u2019s future.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019re not signalling this is the end of Fritter,\u201d he said. <\/p>\n

\u201cFinancially, it wasn\u2019t at a level which was sustainable this year.\u201d <\/p>\n

People had become more discretionary with their spending, ticket sales had declined, and the hospitality industry was struggling. <\/p>\n

\u201cBeing essentially a focus on food and wine and beer … that industry is going through challenges too,\u201d Markwick said.<\/p>\n

Organisers had been hesitant to put ticket prices up to cover costs, especially in the current economic climate.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s a very delicate balance.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"BigBig names like Sir Dave Dobbyn have headlined Fritter Festival. Photo \/ NZME<\/p>\n

Markwick said the decision not to run the flagship event next year aimed to make sure they didn\u2019t get into an \u201ceven bigger situation\u201d. <\/p>\n

About 2500 people attended the event this year. Pre-Covid numbers averaged shy of 5000, with about 3000 post-Covid.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe were reasonably quick to make that decision that we couldn\u2019t make that risk for 2026,\u201d Markwick said.<\/p>\n

He was disappointed but wanted to ensure the organisation was not put at undue risk.<\/p>\n

\"FritterFritter Festival 2024 had about 4000 attendees, with Sir Dave Dobbyn headlining. Photo \/ NZME<\/p>\n

\u201cAs an organisation we would love to see it return and return successfully.\u201d<\/p>\n

The aim of Fritter Festival was always to make an event the community enjoyed and was proud of.<\/p>\n

\u201cAlso giving opportunities for the likes of vendors and bands, especially local bands to step up<\/a> in front of a good audience,\u201d Markwick said.<\/p>\n

Over the years, the Fritter Festival <\/a>has been host to some big names like Sir Dave Dobbyn, The Feelers and The Black Seeds.<\/p>\n

Award-winning food, wine and beer had been at the centre of the event. <\/p>\n

Next year is not the festival\u2019s first hiatus – a three-year break was taken through the Covid 19 pandemic. The event returned in 2023.<\/p>\n

Brodie Stone covers crime and emergency for the Northern Advocate. She has spent most of her life in Whang\u0101rei and is passionate about delving into issues that matter to Northlanders and beyond.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Food, wine and beer are staples of Northland’s Fritter Festival. Photo \/ NZME Northland Events Centre Trust chief…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":129988,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[2246,534,95,50243,806,138,802,25204,3685,3592,5131,2082,89837,3025,111,139,24926,69,43667,13382,1436,801,667,14625,10507,1533],"class_list":["post-129987","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-business","tag-2246","tag-amid","tag-and","tag-anticipated","tag-as","tag-business","tag-costs","tag-declining","tag-events","tag-fall","tag-festival","tag-for","tag-fritter","tag-most","tag-new-zealand","tag-newzealand","tag-northlands","tag-nz","tag-paused","tag-returning","tag-rise","tag-rising","tag-sales","tag-summer","tag-ticket","tag-will"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/129987","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=129987"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/129987\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/129988"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=129987"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=129987"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=129987"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}