Up-and-coming wine and music event Brookby Beats could be set to move away from the Marlborough Wine and Food Festival weekend.
By Kira Carrington of Local Democracy Reporting
The event organisers have made an application to the Marlborough District Council’s commercial events fund, with a plan to establish Brookby Beats as a standalone event, moving it out of the festival weekend in February.
The event is a wine, food and music experience at Brookby Hill Vineyard, held the night before the Marlborough Wine and Food Festival in 2024 and 2025.
Two Rivers of Marlborough, the winery behind Brookby Beats, asked the council for a multi-year grant for marketing and entertainment costs. They had requested $10,000 for 2026, $9000 for 2027, and $8500 for 2028.
But the application was declined in March, the only rejection out of the six events that applied for that funding round.
Two Rivers founder David Clouston told LDR on July 1 that they still had not decided whether the event would go ahead this year.
A council spokesperson said the application was rejected because it could not prove how an event separate from the festival could attract outside visitors, a key part of the commercial events fund criteria.
Marcus Pickens, general manager of Wine Marlborough, which organised the Marlborough Wine and Food Festival, said in May he welcomed any event that wished to spring up around the festival weekend.
"Any events we can build around the Wine and Food Festival, whether it's Brookby Beats, [we’re] absolutely supportive of everything they do," Pickens said.
"It would be fantastic to see a week of events going on [around the festival]."
Pickens said Two Rivers approached Wine Marlborough when they first launched Brookby Beats, and they threw their full support behind the event.
Pickens said he thought events stood a better chance at attracting out-of-region visitors if they clustered around the festival.
"There’s commercial challenges to staging events as individual events. We full well know that they are incredibly difficult to make financially successful," he said.
Wine Marlborough’s post-event survey showed out-of-region visitors stayed in Marlborough for three nights on average, for what was a one-day event, Pickens said.
"There are opportunities around there."
While he encouraged Brookby Beats to stay connected to the festival, Pickens said Two Rivers would have to make their own commercial decisions in a tough events environment.
"It has to tick not just a financial box, [but] all the boxes, for events to decide to keep going."
– LDR is local body journalism co-funded by RNZ and NZ On Air.
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