Bay festival expands into the south

Directors of Bay Dreams, Pato Alvarez, Mitch Lowe and Toby Burrows. Supplied image.

A festival which has characterised the Bay of Plenty for its potential to host one of the nation's most popular events is spreading its wings and headed down South.

Promoters for Bay Dreams, a popular post-New Year festival hosted each year in Tauranga have just announced the festival is heading to the South Island.

Festival co-director Pato Alvarez says it's a dream that's become a reality in just a short amount of time.

'Together with my business partners Mitch Lowe and Toby Burrows we've made this happen. Nelson City council has also been a big part of it.

'We've been working to bring this together since January, just after Bay Dreams 2018.

'Mitch and I have always had big dreams and goals to expand the Bay Dreams Festival and other events.

'We saw the sales from last year which showed more than 3000 people were coming from South Island to Tauranga in the North Island for Bay Dreams. It showed us the interest down there is big

'We went to look for venues down South a few times and we found Nelson the most capable to host this festival.

'It's also just an awesome city, the venue is great and council has been awesome to deal with which makes everything much more comfortable for us.

'We also we linked up with our long-time friend, festival promoter and organiser guru, Toby Burrows, from Gisborne and offered him the chance to jump in this venture with us which he accepted.

'Between the three of us we are excited to bring one of the largest festivals in the North Island into the South Island.”

Pato says feedback so far has been fantastic.

'I'm super excited, we now have four festivals across the country including One Love, both Bay Dreams events and Storm the Gates, a rock festival which has just been in Auckland few months ago.

'The line ups we have organised so far for 2019 are actually bigger than ever before and we can't wait to share it with you all.”

The festival will be at Trafalga Park in Nelson.

'It will be a smaller version than the Tauranga festival. Bay Dreams Tauranga sold 25,000 tickets in 2018 and we are aiming for 30,000 in 2019.

'We're aiming for 15,000 for the first South Island festival.”

Tickets and the artist line-up will be announced in coming weeks.

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