Pasifika Festival: Celebrating Ethnicity and Culture

This article provides an overview of the Pasifika Festival in Auckland, highlighting its significance as a celebration of ethnicity and culture. It explores the festival's objectives, stakeholders, conflicting needs, and the role of public funding and media participation. The article also discusses the unique qualities of the festival and its emotional connection with participants and tourists. Additionally, it offers strategies for financial variability to ensure the festival's sustainability and growth.

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Tourism Management
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Introduction
The Pasifika Festival takes place every year in Auckland. It is a very well known festival
all across the world. This festival acts like the confluence of culture and religion. Tourists from
all over the world attend this festival each year in order to behold the breathtaking performance
of several cultural groups and taste the delicacies bringing in the rich authentic taste of many
ethnic communities. With 1000 performers on 11 stages, 200 stalls selling crafts and 150
different food dishes the Pasifika festival attracts a huge number of tourists each year
(www.aucklandnz.com. 2018). About 30000 to 50000 tourists attend the Pasifika festival each
year. Thus it is one of the biggest and busiest festivals that is conducted each year.
Objectives
The main motif of this festival is to celebrate the ethnicity of people who belong from the
reserved or the lesser known parts. In other words, there are over 10 villages who actively take
[art at this festival. The villagers mainly belong from the ook Islands, Fiji, Niue, Aotearoa,
Hawaii, Samoa, Tahiti, Tuvalu, Tonga, and Tokelau. Thus it is evident that this festival attracts a
huge number of stakeholders coming from different cultural and ethnic backgrounds. It has to be
mentioned that the festival management needs to take a huge responsibility.
Identification of stakeholders
Pasifika festival is like a huge platform that combines many communities together. This
festival gets a huge number of people coming from different backgrounds to exhibit the richness
and the uniqueness of their culture.

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In order to control such a huge crowd of participants on one end and the tourists on the other, the
festival managers have to take many important initiates. The stakeholders include villagers or the
participants coming from in and around Auckland, the tourists who come to attend this festival,
the Government officials for maintaining the security and many other stakeholders are involved.
The Pasifika management has to take help from the Government and the local councils so
that crowd handling and crowd management can take place properly. Firefighters, doctors with
the first aid facility have to be kept at the disposal (Friesen, Blue & Talo, 2016). As there is a
huge accumulation of people coming from different places, there is a chance of accidents.
Language interpretations and translators have to be kept so that there are no issues faced in
understanding the languages. As the stakeholders belong from different parts of the world, there
will naturally be a language barrier. Thus the interpretations will be kept. Apart from this the
media and channels are also one of the major stakeholders as they help in covering the entire
event and convey it among the audiences.
Conflicting needs
There can be some conflicting needs among the stakeholders as there will be a large
variation in the thoughts, language, culture, and status. Different people will have a different
taste and preference in terms of their clothes, food habits, religion. There are chances that one
community might consider a certain food item to be their main and staple diet whereas the other
comm. Unity might consider food to be unholy or insignificant. For instance there are many
communities who follow a strict vegetarian diet and they might consider the food stalls
representing animal meat to be unholy. Thus there is a chance of fights or conflicts arising
between the stakeholders in such cases (Leung et al., 2016).

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Public funding at local or national level
Public funding would be needed in order to set up the stalls repressing the culture of so
many different fragmented cultural communities. In order to ensure that all the local resources
are being displayed at the event, the event management will be requiring a good flow of funds
(Mackley-Crump, 2016). Without proper capital accumulation, it will be tough for them to
arrange for such a big event. Western Springs Park is well-served by public transport services,
close to the Northwestern Cycleway, and local schools offer paid to park as fundraising activities
(Gordon, 2017). Without the active participation from the local people, it is not possible to carry
on as the festival takes place on a continuous pace fighting all climatic odds (Reynolds, 2019).
The local schools and institutions like, Pasadena Intermediate School and Western Springs
College help a lot. They take the car parking charges $10 per car for helping the festival
committee (Chu, 2016).
Government funding is needed in order to accumulate such a huge number of guests. The
Pasifika food show tries to ensure complete trouble-free stay for all its tourists. Thus they
arrange for the special transportation facilities that would allow the tourists to reach the spot
without any problems. They also provide facilities like free shuttle buses and car drop facilities
for the newcomers. VectorLights agency also plays a special role by supplying the festival.
Vector Lights is part of a smart energy partnership between Vector and Auckland Council in
collaboration with the NZ Transport Agency, the guiding light toward a smart energy future
(Cudny, W., & Maiava, 2016). They act as active and useful Government support and take the
responsibility of lighting and decorating the Auckland Harbor Bridge with a regular light show.
This also adds as a good tourist attraction. Thus it acts as not only a time and cost effective

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Government support but also helps in adding to the income flow or the fund inflow for the
festival (Alexeyeff, 2016).
Media participation
ATEED is one of the economic agencies of Auckland that mainly works for covering the
events that will help in bringing useful changes in local communities. Pasifika Festival is
covered by this agency as they feel that Pasifika is not just a food show or a food festival
(www.aucklandnz.com. 2018). This festival plays a huge role in combining so many different
cultures. Thus it provides a good income opportunity for the local people. All the villagers and
local community people can display their handmade crafts and their food items in the stalls.
Over 60000 or more tourists come every year to purchase these items. Thus this agency
helps in spreading this message to people far and wide across the world. The media works to
make tourists aware of the specialty of this festival. They help in supporting the growth and
empowerment of the local Aucklanders. Pacific media network is another media channel that
helps in connecting the festival with all the tourists. These media channels also help in
connecting the festival management group with the sponsors and the fundraisers (Booth 2016).
The unique quality of an event to encourage participation
The Pasifika festival in itself is one of the most unique events. This is not just a food
show but like a ground of cultural confluence and unification of the Pacific Islanders with the
rest of the world. One of the unique features that encourage participation is the rich and pompous
display of the cultural programs being presented by the people of Pacific communities

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(Kingsbury, Andrews & Kearns, 2016). The tourists are able to witness some very colorful and
rich ethnic some and dance shows. This makes the villagers motivated and encouraged to take
part in the show (Laumemea, 2018). All the people from different villages of the Pacific Islander
are encouraged and they come prepared with huge groups to present their cultural richness in
front of the entire world.
Emotional Connection
Pacifika makes an emotional connection between participants and the tourists because it
is just not a food festival; It is the bridge that helps in unifying so many lost and forgotten
cultures with their traditionalism. Pasifika is like the recreation of the folklore and the cultures of
the Pacific Islanders. They are able to exhibit their cultural identities and true self in front of the
world. It acts like a learning platform that teaches cross-cultural competencies. Apart from this
festival serves as a means of boosting up the economic and social status of the local communities
(Mackley-Crump, 2015) They are able to exhibit the richness and vigor of their culture over a
Global platform. Apart from this they also get a good source of income by presenting the food
and their handmade artifacts at the festival.
Financial variability
The income can be increased by the following strategies
Collaborating with a digital media platform that helps in reaching out to a very large
number of audiences located in different parts of the world. The digital presence will help the
festival management to get connected with customers easily. The customers here are mainly
tourists who will be able to get all the updates very easily (Hjalager & Kwiatkowski, 2017).

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As the inflow of tourists will increase, it will automatically help the Pasifika festival to
get a huge capital accumulation. This will help them in investing more amount of money over
their R&D sectors.
Cost reduction can be done by using the eco-friendly or the energy saving gadgets for
lightening purposes. As the festival goes on for a very long time, they need to bear huge
expenditure on lighting and electricity. Thus they can use solar panels and solar cells that will
help them to reduce their expenses.
Conclusion
Thus it can be concluded that Pasifika is working for a very good and noble cause. They
are trying to form a cultural unification. It is acting like a platform that would help the people of
the Pacific Island to present their cultural richness in front of the world. It gives them a chance to
boost their economic status.

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References
Alexeyeff, K. (2016). The Pacific Festivals of Aotearoa New Zealand: Negotiating Place and
Identity in a New Homeland by Jared Mackley-Crump. the contemporary pacific, 28(2),
494-496.
Booth, A. (2016). Negotiating diasporic culture: festival collaborations and production
networks. International Journal of Event and Festival Management, 7(2), 100-116.
Chu, C. (2016). Pasifika. Encyclopedia of Educational Philosophy and Theory, 1-5.
Cudny, W., & Maiava, O. (2016). Pasifika Festival w Auckland i Festiwal Łódź Czterech Kultur
jako czynniki zachowania i promowania wielokulturowego dziedzictwa w
miastach. Annales Universitatis Mariae Curie-Sklodowska, sectio B–Geographia,
Geologia, Mineralogia et Petrographia, 71(2).
Friesen, W., Blue, L., & Talo, R. (2016). Pasifika Festival representations and realities for the
wellbeing of Pacific peoples in Aotearoa/New Zealand. Soundscapes of wellbeing in
popular music. London: Routledge, 123-144.
Gordon, A. R. (2017). The Pearl Frontier: Indonesian Labor and Indigenous Encounters in
Australia's Northern Trading Network. By Julia Martínez and Adrian Vickers. Pacific
Affairs, 90(1), 204-207.
Hjalager, A. M., & Kwiatkowski, G. (2017). Innovation in rural festivals: Are festival managers
disempowered?. In Power, Construction and Meaning in Festivals (pp. 91-107).
Routledge.

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Kingsbury, P., Andrews, G. J., & Kearns, R. (Eds.). (2016). Soundscapes of wellbeing in popular
music. Routledge.
Laumemea, R. (2018). Engaging with Pasifika Families and Communities: Secondary School
Leaders' Perceptions(Doctoral dissertation, Auckland University of Technology).
Leung, C., Bealing, M., Gamperle, D., Spring, S., Yeabsley, J., & Krieble, T. (2016). Pacific
Cultural Centre feasibility study.
Mackley-Crump, J. (2015). The Pacific festivals of Aotearoa New Zealand: Negotiating place
and identity in a new homeland. University of Hawai'i Press.
Mackley-Crump, J. (2016, April). From Private Performance to the public stage: Reconsidering
‘staged authenticity’and ‘traditional’performances at the Pasifika festival.
In Anthropological Forum (Vol. 26, No. 2, pp. 155-176). Routledge.
Pereira, F. (2016). The Pacific festivals of Aotearoa New Zealand: Negotiating place and identity
in a new homeland [Book Review]. Journal of New Zealand Studies, (23), 112.Reynolds,
M. (2019). Culturally Relevant (Teacher) Education: Teachers Responding through Va in
the Inter-cultural Space of Pasifika Education. New Zealand Journal of Educational
Studies, 1-18.
www.aucklandnz.com. (2018). Aucklandnz.com. Available at:
https://www.aucklandnz.com/news/latest-news/prepping-pasifika-festival\

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Appendices

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