Christmas in Park goes all digital

• Published date: 08 November 2021

The popular community event organised by the Kaisen Charitable Trust and usually held at Napier’s Anderson Park will now be run as a live-stream event.

Organiser and trustee David Trim said they had been preparing three different versions of the event after realising it would not likely be able to take place as usual.

“We are trying to find ways to keep our Hawke’s Bay events alive instead of ending up on the cancellation list.”

Trim said the event sector had had a tough time with changing restrictions around crowd restrictions relating to COVID-19 alert level settings.

The organisers waited as long as possible to see what format the final Christmas at the Park would look like.

“With all the known information, as of now, collated and placed into the COVID crystal ball for gazing into the future, we can see that we will most likely not have the required levels we need to run the event in Anderson Park.”

Going digital would allow the event to continue via live streaming, maintaining all the entertainment features usually packed into the show, including a digital fireworks display.

“The digital concept opens up the door for other ways of audience...