Queenstown’s Winter Festival appeal endures

Posted on 04 February 2010 at 05:16 PM

From left - Stephen Pahl (Sales & Marketing Oaks Hotels & Resorts) and Festival Director Simon Green

The broad appeal of the Southern Hemisphere’s biggest winter party continues to attract strong commercial support with organisers again signing up a family of sponsors that includes several household name brands.

Returning Festival Director Simon Green says that despite recent global economic woes, the high regard for American Express Queenstown Winter Festival is shining through.

“The festival is now in its 36^th year and has built a solid national and international reputation as an enduring event that delivers for visitors, sponsors and the local community.

“The festival declares Queenstown open for winter with a celebration that is uniquely Queenstown,” says Mr Green.  “It’s 10 days of totally outrageous winter fun.  It offers a chance for locals to get together and celebrate winter living, and for visitors it’s a great time to come because town is absolutely buzzing, the ski fields are open and there’s a real party atmosphere.”

Mr Green says the festival’s family of sponsors are key contributors to its continued success. 

“When it comes to our sponsorship partners, our focus is on building relationships with companies and brands that fit the personality and positioning of the festival.  This is why our sponsor partnerships last.  We share similar expectations, similar target markets and our key messages are the same – we’re all focused on celebrating the arrival of winter and delivering a consistently great Festival to our local community and to our visitors.

“We’re lucky enough to have a number of long term partnerships - our naming rights sponsor American Express, for example, has been with us for 19 years, Lindauer has been with us for 17 and Coronet Peak and Gen-i have been with us since the beginning,” he says.

Other long term partnerships include platinum sponsors MoreFM and Air New Zealand and gold sponsors Mountain Scene and Lion Nathan.

Quiksilver and Budget Rental Cars are back for their second year of sponsorship, while new to the Winter Festival family are Russian Standard Vodka (parent company Beam Global) and Oaks Hotels & Resorts who have signed on as platinum and silver sponsors.

“We are delighted to welcome Russian Standard and Oaks Hotels & Resorts to the festival and hope they will enjoy it as much as we do,” says Mr Green.

Other partners in the accommodation sector include Rydges Lakeland Resort Queenstown, Azur Lodge, Crowne Plaza, and Novotel Queenstown Lakeside.

Information about this year’s programme and further sponsorships will be available in the next couple of months.

The festival’s enduring success was last year recognised by the events industry, winning Best Established Event at the annual Event Professionals Industry Awards.  The award was judged on event innovation, rejuvenation, initiative, economic, environmental, social and cultural sustainability.

Festival organisers are expecting to attract similar visitor levels to 2009, with potentially more Australians taking part as a result of recently announced increased Air New Zealand trans-Tasman capacity.

The American Express Queenstown Winter Festival runs from 25 June to 4 July 2010.  For more festival information visit www.winterfestival.co.nz.

For further information contact:

Simon Green
American Express Queenstown Winter Festival
Phone: 027 294 6837
Email: simon@winterfestival.co.nz

Festival background

Queenstown’s Winter Festival was originally launched in 1975 by a group of locals to celebrate the arrival of winter. The group organised races on the mountain and in town, lollies for the kids, beers for the grown-ups, a concert or two and a local ball, all of which were a great success. News quickly spread and over the years the event has grown in size and stature.

Now renowned as the Southern Hemisphere’s biggest winter party, each year it brings tens of thousands of visitors to town and injects an estimated $45 million annually into the community.