Festival goodies arrive in Wellington

BY REBECCA THOMSON - THE WELLINGTONIAN

Shipping containers filled with sets, props and technical equipment started arriving by plane and boat last month for the New Zealand International Arts Festival.

Freight manager Paul Stewart and arts festival technical manager Al Cameron are overseeing the arrival of the freight.

Mr Stewart is the branch manager of freight company Geodis Wilson and has been working with the New Zealand International Arts Festival since its inception in 1986.

"Back in those days I had my own business and did a lot of work for film companies and advertising agencies," said Mr Stewart.

"I knew a fair few of the production guys and when they started the festival they asked me to help out."

Freight for the festival started arriving two weeks before Christmas.

It got particularly busy from the middle of January. Mr Stewart often starts work at 5am.

"But really we start about a year before [the Festival].

"I'll have just got one festival, like the Auckland one, tidied up and I'll start fielding queries for the Wellington one," said Mr Stewart.

Most containers arrive at Centre Port and taken to a storage facility in Upper Hutt until the festival starts.

"Some years you get a lot of sea freight, some year's there's a lot of airfreight and sometimes there's little of either," he said.

"This year there are 15 to 20 containers of air and sea freight arriving."

No snakes have entered the country on Mr Stewart's watch, but festival performers have brought in stuffed animals and animal skin drum kits, which must be approved by the Ministry of Agriculture and Forestry.

Mr Stewart said sometimes it was the performers themselves who created headaches for airport staff.

"During the first or second festival there was an orchestra that had drug addicts in it and they were on methadone.

"When they turned up at the airport we had to get the airport medical officer, who was a doctor, to grab the methadone off them. He had to prescribe it on a daily basis.

"That's got to take the cake for one of the weirdest things we've ever had for a festival," Mr Stewart said.

In the past, theatre groups have brought in real firearms, an exploding Suzuki van and a bearskin rug.

Often Festival staff will try to source items locally. Mr Cameron said the tractor being used in the French show Transports Exceptionnels will be a New Zealand one.

At the end of the festival props, sets and equipment are packed up and sent back to where they came from or to other festivals.