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Thermal Explorer helps bring blues and barbecues to Rotorua

At the end of every Spring, Rotorua’s lakefront reverberates to the soulful sounds of the blues and the aromatic smells of slow-cooked BBQ delicacies.

The New Zealand Blues and BBQ Festival has grown into a must-see fixture on the city’s events calendar, with hundreds of locals and out-of-towners flocking to the shore of Lake Rotorua for a meaty, musical and magnificently artistic three-day extravaganza.

The 2022 and 2023 festivals drew the largest crowds in the event’s 11-year history, attracting around 2,000 people each – almost half of them from outside the Rotorua region. 

Festival director Terry Oldham said the upswing in festival attendance was the result of a decision to bring all festival events to one central lakefront-location, rather than running separate smaller gigs at local hospitality venues, as had been done in the past.

“We applied for and received two years of funding support from the Thermal Explorer Regional Events Fund in 2022, and that allowed us to concentrate the event on the lakefront. 

“It provided for better marketing to bring more people to the Rotorua region, bigger headline acts, and the addition of the popular ‘low and slow’ BBQ competition and art competition that we’ve now added to event.”

Terry is also the president of the Bay of Plenty Blues Club, which organises the festival and coordinates the army of volunteers that help make it happen.

The club has put community and young people at the heart of the event’s philosophy and harnesses the festival’s energy to inspire the next generation of blues lovers.

Terry says youth events at the festival include a music competition for young solo acts and bands, a BBQ cookoff competition for people aged 13-17, and a painting and colouring workshop and competition for young artists.

“As part of our ‘Sunday Funday’ we invite six or seven top young bands or blues acts and we bring in the schools to help out. The prize is $5,000 worth of recording services and the first band that won it was Sonorous, from Taupo. They are now touring Australia and have done very well on Spotify.

“Our 2022 solo winner was Sean Lurman from Te Awamutu and he went on to the World Championships of Performing Arts in Los Angeles and took out four gold medals. We were proud to have supported him.”

One of the highlights of the most recent festival was the number of people travelling from outside Rotorua, Terry says.

“We see lots of people coming from places like Auckland and Bay of Plenty, but also a good number from Australia. The Thermal Explorer Regional Events Fund helped us to really showcase Rotorua as a destination.”

Attendees spend an average of $77 per head on the grounds of the festival, and hundreds of thousands of dollars more are spent across the region on everything from food and hospitality through to accommodation, travel and shopping in Rotorua’s stores. Eat Streat in Rotorua is always “buzzing” when the festival is on, as is Clarks Bar at the Novotel, which neighbours the event venue, Terry says.

“The general vibe in the town is great on the festival nights.”

Terry says organising the festival takes a lot of work by members of the Bay of Plenty Blues Club and countless hours of assistance from dedicated volunteers, but the results are satisfying and are helping to raise awareness of the music club members love.

“The blues is the root of nearly all modern music – it’s influenced it all, some people don’t know that.”

Club membership has expanded thanks to the festival, as well as the outspoken support of club patron and legendary Kiwi bluesman Sir Midge Marsden and club member and last surviving member of New Zealand’s Māori battalion Sir Robert ‘Bom’ Gillies. The festival has also served as a uniting force for blues clubs around the country, helping to build stronger relationships between them.

Terry says the support of locals, visitors and the Thermal Explorer Regional Events Fund have helped make the event sustainable long term, and he hopes it will continue to grow. 

That support has included Thermal Explorer capability-building workshops, which have helped the club in its approaches to event sponsors and other funding sources.

“The tips they gave us on how to engage with stakeholders and funders, and how to hold on to them, has helped us immensely.

“We couldn’t have done that without the Thermal Explorer Regional Events Fund.”

The 2024 New Zealand Blues and BBQ Festival will be held from 29 November to 1 December at the Rotorua Village Green.

About the Thermal Explorer Regional Events Fund

The $3.75 million Thermal Explorer Regional Events Fund was established by the New Zealand Government in the aftermath of the Covid-19 pandemic to help stimulate domestic tourism and travel to the Waikato, Rotorua, Taupō and Ruapehu regions by supporting events. 

Forty-nine events have been offered funding since the fund was created, attracting an estimated 370,000 people to the Thermal Explorer region. 

The fund is now in its final year. It is managed collectively through the Event Investment Panel, which is made up of a representative from each of the regional tourism organisations in the Thermal Explorer area – Hamilton & Waikato Tourism (Lead Entity), RotoruaNZ, Destination Great Lake Taupō, and Visit Ruapehu – and one local council representative from each of the four regions.