Last month's Pasifika Festival
The stages were as spectacular as usual. The authentic movements of traditional dance, the sounds and rhythm of drums, the colour and patterns of hibiscus and frangipani made it hard to choose which performance to watch as each island bringing their A Game to the March 2026 Pasifika Festival at Western Springs Lakeside Park.
The rest of the festival strayed from that theme looking more like a French colonial envision with the pointy white tents set in military-like rows and the lack of the arts of the Pacific.
The price of stall hire making it not viable for freighting goods of tapa cloth, black pearls, weaving and tivaevae appliqué. across the Tasman. The food stalls had to put their prices beyond the budget of those South Auckland families to taste the pit cooked kai - Mãori hangi, Fijian lovo, Samoan and Tongan umu, Hawaiian imu and Tahitian ahima'a.
Auckland Transport closed off Motions Road to parking with orange cones and set up a 5 minute loading zone on Great North Road, fining and towing offenders.. AT did provide a zone for disabled parking. They apparently provided free buses from South Auckland but that was poorly advertised and didn’t even appear on their page. The last bus left at 3.40pm on Sunday while the Festival didn’t close until 6pm.
People just didn’t come, it’s not as if cycling from GI was an option!
The Waitematā Local Board had talked about replacing the iconic double hump eel bridge because the crowds blocked it while moving from village to village but the photo below shows how few were using it, so luckily I saved it from demolition.
Sadly again Pasifika was still a shadow of its former self as I reported in PN April 2025 and I have reported this to the office of the Mayor in the hope that they will fix it so the Festival will be restored to its former glory in 2027
Gael Baldock, Community advocate
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