No nostalgic pang for WOW in Wellington

OPINION: I had a telling moment on the Wellington waterfront last weekend.

It was Saturday night and I was heading to a 40th birthday party at the historic Star Boating Club when I spotted one of the Government's $170,000 ministerial BMWs that were the cause of much wailing and gnashing of teeth a few years ago. It was the first time I'd seen one and, being interested in politics and cars, I paused for a look.

After being struck by its immense ugliness, my thoughts turned to whom it might be waiting for. For some reason I pictured Bill English putting his accommodation allowance woes behind him with a glass of dessert wine and creme brulee at the nearby Shed 5 restaurant.

Feeling like a beer and a boogie, I walked on. I was passing the TSB Bank Arena when I was stopped in my tracks by the strains of opera. It took a full three seconds for me to realise that what I was hearing was the Montana World of WearableArt Awards, which explained the presence of the Crown car.

It was an interesting experience, because once upon a time I was one of the show's biggest fans and when it left Nelson, like a lot of people, I was heartbroken. It was odd because I didn't feel the slightest bit compelled to try to sneak in for a look. I didn't even feel a nostalgic pang for the days that the Trafalgar Centre would become the centre of the world as we knew it. All I felt like was a beer and a boogie.

I had been in Wellington since 11am and had spent most of the day downtown. I'm sure there were WOW banners at the airport but I didn't notice them. There may well have been posters up in Cuba St but I didn't see them, either. The only thing I saw that told me the awards were on was an obnoxiously big Mercedes Benz SUV with WOW written all over it that had made getting into a park a challenge just before lunch.

What hit me that night is how so much of the joy of WOW used to come from the fact that, like the Venice Carnival and the New Orleans Mardi Gras, it was a genuine, organic, cultural phenomenon – a Nelson original. The fact it used to be staged in a basketball stadium and was made possible by the passion of hundreds of volunteers and mostly Nelson artists, and the way we got to share it with visitors, were major parts of what made WOW cool. In other words, if you move it to another town, I'm not interested.

And while Nelson's WearableArt dream may be over, Suzie Moncrieff and Gabrielle Hervey deserve credit for keeping their dream alive. Getting the Wellington City Council to sign up for another four years is an achievement and good on them.

Of course, WOW leaving town has had its advantages. For one thing, the Nelson Arts Festival has been able to move to the warmer, more settled month of October. Not only does this mean being able to go to shows on balmy nights and better weather for the Port Nelson Masked Parade, it means not freezing our butts off at the More FM Carnivale. It also means more money for other artistic endeavours.

One of the reasons ticket sales for the arts festival and the New Zealand International Film Festival have been steadily rising in recent years has to be that fewer of us are forking out at the same time of year for WOW. This has not only helped to make both events more sustainable, it's helped them grow.

As for the WOW museum, I haven't been there since the show left town.

I just haven't felt like it, in the same way I have no interest in catching up with ex-lovers with whom things ended badly.

Some of you will think that's taking things too personally but, as I realised on the Wellington waterfront, it's the fact so many of us in Nelson took WOW personally that made it so special.

- © Fairfax NZ News