Part D: Statements of
Service Provision

4

Oranga ahurea

Cultural wellbeing

We aim to strengthen and promote Wellington’s unique cultural identity.

In this section

This section includes, for the following groups of activities, what we do; the rationale – why we do it; the service offering; key projects and programmes; how the activities are funded and how much they cost; any significant negative effects; and the level of service we expect to provide, with performance measures that demonstrate what you can expect as part of that level of service.

There is one activity grouping under this strategic area, it is:

4.1 Arts and cultural activities

What we do – an overview

• Manage Toi Pōneke Arts Centre and the City Art Collection
• Support major events and festivals, such as Diwali, a Christmas festival and Matariki (the Māori New Year)
• Public art installations
• Through the Museums Trust, a CCO, we provide Wellington Museum, City Gallery, Capital E, the Cable Car Museum, Carter Observatory (Space Place) and Nairn Street Historic Cottage
• Provide funding support to Te Papa Tongarewa

Why we do it

Alignment with our long-term city outcomes

People-centred city
Arts and cultural activities anchor Wellington’s appeal as a place of creativity, exploration, innovation and excitement, and add to residents’ quality of life.

These activities build a sense of place and provide a welcoming environment for the city’s increasingly diverse population.

Dynamic central city
Our arts and cultural activities enhance Wellington’s vibrancy as a diverse, inclusive, creative, active and eventful place.

Alignment with the priorities in Our 10-Year Plan

Arts and culture
Wellington has a reputation as the cultural capital of New Zealand. However, it faces increasing competition from other cities. To retain our reputation as a cool, edgy capital, we need to reinvigorate our arts and culture scene.

Our direction

Outcome indicators

We use outcome indicators to monitor progress towards our outcomes over time. This provides us with information on trends that may influence our performance, including those outside our control. As these indicators are at least partially outside of our control, we do not set targets for outcome indicators but instead we will monitor and report on trends over time.

The below is a summary of the outcomes we are monitoring over time. The full list of indicators that inform these outcomes for the cultural wellbeing area are included at the end of the cultural wellbeing section.

• Cultural reputation, participation and vibrancy. We want to be recognised as a capital of culture. We monitor the perceptions of Wellington residents and New Zealanders on Wellington’s arts, culture and events scene; we also monitor the proportion of out-of-town visitors to arts and cultural events.
• Cultural attraction and event investment success. We want to attract visitors to our museums, events and other attractions. We monitor the total visitors to Te Papa and other museums and galleries; we also monitor the success, in terms of total tickets sold, customer satisfaction and economic return, of the New Zealand Festival.

What this tells us:

If our city’s events are well attended by both Wellingtonians and visitors, it is an indicator that our city is vibrant and providing opportunities for people to connect with each other. This in turn leads to a city that provides a high quality of life.

4.1 Ngohe toi, ahurea hoki Arts and cultural activities

Our city has traditionally been recognised as the cultural capital of New Zealand. This reflects a mix of factors, including the presence of national arts organisations in the city, funding support from the Council, the sense of a supportive citizenry, and a reputation for edgy and interesting arts in the city.

Services we provide

• Delivering a wide variety of free public events, such as ReCut, A Very Welly Christmas, Summer City including Gardens Magic, Te Rā o Waitangi, Pasifika Festival, Matariki, Sky Show, Diwali and more throughout the calendar year
• Advising on and supporting a range of community events, including the Newtown Festival, Chinese New Year and Africa Day
• Supporting and delivering a range of public art, including Art on Walls, the Courtenay Place Park Light Boxes and a programme of temporary public art
• Running Toi Pōneke Arts Centre, which houses a community of practitioners, arts organisations and creative businesses
• Giving arts advice and support, maintaining an art collection of more than 500 artworks, and running the young people’s arts festival Artsplash

• Funding the Wellington Museums Trust, which operates:
  • Wellington Museum
  • City Gallery Wellington
  • Wellington Cable Car Museum
  • Nairn Street Cottage
  • Space Place at Carter Observatory
  • Capital E
  • Hannah Playhouse

Key projects/programmes

We want to maintain our reputation as the cultural capital of New Zealand, and to achieve this in the face of increasing competition from other cities will require investment. We will invest in a programme – a Decade of Culture – that will emphasise and enhance the city’s unique creative strengths. This coordinated programme will be built around new and existing opportunities and will help the city compete as a cultural destination. Securing this reputation is important to help us continue:

• improving residents’ quality of life
• attracting more overseas visitors
• creating a sense of excitement in the city
• creating high-quality jobs
• attracting and retaining talent in the cultural sector
• telling our story to the world.

This programme of infrastructure, art, events, theatre, urban design and festivals will ensure all residents can experience the city’s cultural offering. The following will be included:

• Strengthening cultural facilities. A thriving art and culture sector requires the right facilities to showcase talent. Some of Wellington’s facilities are not fit for purpose and require upgrading, and key facilities are missing from the city’s repertoire. As part of the Long-term Plan 2015–25, we agreed – after receiving positive feedback from the community – to invest in the Movie Museum and Convention Centre and an indoor arena to host major events and musical acts. These projects are discussed further in the ‘Economic development’ chapter from page 65.

In this plan, we will also carry out a number of upgrades to existing venues, such as the St James Theatre ($11.8 million of capital expenditure in years 1–2) and the Town Hall ($91.2 million of capital expenditure in years 1–3) to provide the platform for cultural activity in the city. Once these venues have been reinstated the upgrades will present an improved level of service, establishing a music hub for the public in the Town Hall.

We have also budgeted to earthquake strengthen the Bond Store, home of the Wellington Museum, in years 3–4 at an estimated cost of $10 million of capital expenditure. The strengthening work will also include the remodelling of the ground floor of the museum to improve customer experience.

• Expanding the reach of our major events. Wellington has a strong reputation for arts, festivals and events, but is facing tougher competition from other cities that are increasing their spending on culture and attracting visitors. In the coming 3 years, we aim to grow our annual cultural celebration of Matariki and help improve the reach of existing events, such as the World of WearableArt, CubaDupa and the New Zealand Festival. We will allocate $16 million over 10 years from the City Growth Fund and other sources of funding, including the Wellington Regional Amenities Fund, to support the delivery of the Decade of Culture programme.
• Investment in the arts. We will continue our investment in professional and community arts and cultural projects. This includes:
  • Te Whare Hēra: This is an international artist residency programme that brings artists to live, work and exhibit in Wellington for 3–6 months at a time. This programme has been carried out in collaboration with Te Whiti o Rehua (Massey University School of Art) since 2014. This programme will continue to be delivered at a cost of $45,000 per year.
  • Arts and Culture Fund: We will maintain our support for important arts organisations with 3-year funding contracts. This fund currently supports Orchestra Wellington, Circa Theatre, Kia Mau Festival and others.

• Review of Arts and Cultural Strategy. In the first 2 years of this 10-year plan we will review the Arts and Culture Strategy and explore opportunities with the arts community to create employment pathways for artists in the city.

How it will be funded

What it will cost The significant capital expenditure in this area is for the Movie Museum and Convention Centre. Capital expenditure for earthquake strengthening of existing cultural facilities is included in ‘Urban development’.

What you can expect from us – performance measures

We use performance measures to track how well we are delivering services against targets.

Please note the following when reading these measures.

• These measures represent the range of data we collect, which will inform how well we are delivering our services. When we report on our performance, it may be on groups of measures rather than individual measures in order to clearly tell our performance story.
• The majority of measures have the same target for the 10 years of the plan. Where the target differs, it will be identified through footnotes.
• We have included the target for the previous year for context. However, as we have carried out a review of the performance measures we don’t have previous year targets for all measures. Where there is a comparable measure we have included the target with a footnote explaining any difference between the measures.

4.1 Arts and cultural activities

Key challenges and negative effects

Council activities are carried out in order to maintain or improve the wellbeing of Wellingtonians and visitors to Wellington. Some of these activities may have negative effects that need to be managed or mitigated.

Outcome indicators – Cultural wellbeing

We use outcome indicators to monitor progress towards our outcomes over time. This provides us with information on trends that may influence our performance, including those outside our control. As these indicators are at least partially outside of our control, we do not set targets for outcome indicators but instead we will monitor and report on trends over time.