Spring into Tawa Festival for 2021 is cancelled

Tracey from Tawa

We are sad to announce that Spring into Tawa 2021, due to be held on Saturday 30 October, has been cancelled, due to ongoing uncertainty related to Covid-19.
With no certainty of when Wellington will return to Level 1, and in fact what Level 1 may look like in the future, we can not carry on planning to hold this event. To say we are devastated would be an understatement – we are devastated for our community, our stallholders, our entertainers, our sponsors, our volunteers and everyone who looks forward to Spring into Tawa each year.

Postponement is also unfortunately not an option. Many of the key processes we have to implement each year have long lead times (e.g. the road closure is a 12 week process alone) and at this time of year we should be putting the finishing touches on this year’s event, before taking a short break and starting planning for next year's event in late January.

Spring into Tawa is a not for profit event. We rely on sponsorship and grants as well as stallholder fees to run this event each year and therefore we have had to make the decision before we incur too much cost. We feel it’s the responsible thing to do, meaning that hopefully funding we have received from charitable organisations and the Wellington City Council can be reallocated to other worthy causes.

We are also on a zero waste journey as an event – and the idea of printing signs, billboard skins, banners, posters and other collateral that would go to waste without use is not in line with our drive to reduce the impact of our event on the environment.

We thank all our stallholders, entertainers, supporters, volunteers, sponsors and friends for their patience as we’ve worked through this decision process. We pushed our decision out to this week hoping it would give us a chance to go ahead. However, the time has come to make a call and cancel the event.

We would especially like to thank our amazing sponsors – Tamsin Davidson One Agency Reality, Speedy Signs Wellington, The Borough, Digital Tree Design and Peak Audio. Without their amazing support, we would not have got as far with our planning for this year’s event as we did.

We thank you all for your support for our wonderful event. The small team of dedicated organisers loves bringing this event to you each year – and seeing our amazing community enjoy the great day out.

And as a silver lining for those as devastated as us tonight, we’ve confirmed Saturday 29 October as the date for Spring into Tawa 2022. Lock it in now – we can’t wait to bring Spring into Tawa back to you in 2022.

And in the meantime, the ONLY way to get live and events back to some sort of normal – whatever that looks like! – is for each of us individually, and collectively with our family, whanau, friends and community to stay on top of Covid-19 measures – and to get vaccinated! For official information on Aotearoa’s Covid 19 response, please visit covid19.govt.nz...

With our kindest regards, until we see you again

Spring into Tawa organising group
Stacey, Miranda, Peter, Damian, Tracey, Karen, Jan, Janryll and Joanna