Outlet Podcast: Duncan Forsyth on shelving Luma
Luma organisers have pulled pin on the lights and art festival for 2025 due to rising costs, falling attendance and increasingly complex logistics.
Held over King's Birthday weekend in June, the festival had become one of the highlights of the year for the town, at its peak welcoming around 50,000 people to Queenstown Gardens for spectacular lights, arts and music installations. But numbers were down last year, with around 32,000 attending, as people tightened their spending due to the cost of living crisis.
Luma Charitable Trust chair Duncan Forsyth says an incredible amount of effort goes into the festival behind the scenes, with a team of six core organisers meeting every week throughout the year and then every day in the month before the event.
They wrangle about 300 crew and volunteers over the weekend, providing a platform for scores of artists and performers.
Forsyth says the festival runs on a budget of $1 million and last year lost $197. While it's never been about making money, the organisers put their own money on the line, so it has to be able to wash its own face.
And with costs rising by as much as 20% for events nationwide, they can't make the passion project festival stack up for 2025.
"We've had a lot of fun and we're not pushing the end button, we're just saying we need a bit of a pause. We don't want to lose money and be responsible for that," he tells our Outlet Podcast
"I think we've got another year of pain. I'm involved in the hospitality business, a winery, as my day job, and everything is tough at the moment. There's not a single person I know that's not going backwards or doing it tough.
"So the events business, same thing. So we're going to push pause and just sort of do a little restructure and see how we can come back in a slight better sustainable way."
The cancellation is likely to have an economic impact for artists and the town too. It had replaced Queenstown WinterFest as the annual community get-together.
Forsyth says the team have been humbled by the support they've received, both through the event's 10 years and since the announcement was made late last week.
Looking to the future, he says Luma will look to find a way to support local artists and continue its programmes, and is talking through the different direction for the festival.
"When we were in the middle of Covid, we did the Laneways activation in town, so that might be [possible] on a larger scale," he says.
"I think it can be anything from really small one-off installations to actual financial support and creative support for people . . . but at the same time, we're looking how we can come back and put on events from the existing size all the way down.
"So, watch this space. We're not going anywhere. We've still got a few years left in us and we will be coming back. It's just probably not this King's birthday, but it will come back and we're just sort of planning and scheming now."
