Tauranga City Council is to re-think the way it considers and supports city events following a workshop where staff presented councillors with alternatives to its current approach.

Tauranga City Council is to re-think the way it considers and supports city events.

The workshop follows a recent argumentative funding round for the city's flagship events, when councillors were told the city risks losing the few flagship events it has, unless the council changes its policy and approach.

At the workshop staff presented a picture of a council that has sat on its hands since the current policy was decided 13 years ago, and contrasted that with Taupo District Council, which during the last 10 years has established itself as a both nationally and internationally-recognised events centre.

Taupo council's decision included hiring someone to bring events into the city, and for the council get behind the person and support event promotions with by helping with traffic issues, road closures, consents and other bureaucratic problems.

Warwick Hall, Taupo's former events marketing manager, says one of the ways he got Taupo recognised as the best events town in the world with a population under 100,000, was to go for the bargain events.

A lot of non-mainstream events are cheap, but bring in crowds just as big as the more mainstream events, says Warwick. Jousting and powerlifting bring in people who stay and spend money in town, just like the main events, such as the iron man and the cycle race.

The failings of the Tauranga council's set up were pointed out by Tauranga Hockey's Clyde du Toit who said better support from an events-oriented council may have swung the Oceania Hockey Tournament away from Stratford, which has only one turf.

The tournament includes men's and women's teams from Australia, New Zealand, Papua New Guinea and Samoa. When Clyde was trying to put the bid together, the council-controlled organisation Tourism BOP didn't have the information he required.

Clyde's not saying that's why Tauranga's bid for the event failed, but says an association like Tauranga Hockey does not have the resources to chase the information.

Following Tauranga City councillors' decision to lift their city's ‘events game', the next discussion will be on how it will work.

The Taupo set up had Warwick reporting directly to the deputy CEO, and also saw him sitting with the economic hub HODs.

Tauranga City Council CEO Garry Poole says Wellington has a tiered structure, and more people are involved as the amount of money for the event gets larger.

As result, in Wellington, the $20,000 amounts the Tauranga City Council was arguing over last month was the able to be decided by a single person in the capital's structure, says Garry.

The ideal person for this type of job is someone close to council but with delegated authority to act quickly when required, the TCC workshop was told.

Spending ratepayers' money on events is now considered to be investing in the city, as a successful event brings in much more than is spent on it.

Sport BOP CEO Wayne Werder says while councillors have concerns about spending ratepayers money on a volatile events market, there are private investors waiting for the city's lead.

'The private sector wants to get involved, but is waiting see leadership from the city first,” says Wayne.

Compared to the private sector, the ratepayer funding makes the council a small financial player – but it's about leadership, says Wayne.

Garry says the city also needs to have a discussion about its events branding.

'The world has moved on and we should not think of events in the old way of a being hand out or a hand up,” says Garry.

Tauranga's natural advantages means it hasn't had to work for events in the past, and up until the global economic crisis, the city relied on its natural advantages, says Garry

'We are in a completely different world than we were prior to 2007 – and we have to adapt and quickly to this world.”