Dame Kiri concert tickets optional

Press, 28 December 1989, Page 7

Dame Kiri concert tickets optional

By

CLARE BARRY

People without tickets will not be stopped from walking into North Hagley Park to listen to the free Dame Kiri Te Kanawa concert on January 9. Those without tickets could walk in with the others, said the Christchurch City Council officer in charge of organising the concert, Mr Alan Patterson.

He said it would be preferable for people to have tickets, to give the organisers an indication of how many would attend and what extra services would be needed.

The council has set up a “project team” to co-ordinate

parking, security, toilet and transport arrangements for the event. About 300 people from the Army and service clubs will provide security and crowd control.

They will also patrol car-park areas set aside by the council in South Hagley Park and near Nancy’s Corner, Riccarton Road. Council parking buildings and Addington Raceway will also be used, with buses running to and from the park for concertgoers. Park Terrace and Rolleston Avenue will be closed to all traffic except taxis, buses and emergency vehicles from 4.30

p.m. Parking will be prohibited there all day. Mr Patterson said the concert was a big undertaking. “We’re talking about 100,000 people for a 2i/ 2 hour concert which is a major task in an open park,” he said. It had been possible so far only with the co-operation of a • lot of other people. The Ministry of Transport, Army, police and St John Ambulance were involved. The Spanish International Circus would have to be repositioned and two Summer Times events have been rescheduled. Dame Kiri will sing a selection of well-known opera pieces and

songs from musicals including “My Fair Lady,” “West Side Story” and “The Sound of Music.” The general manager of International Management Group which is organising the concerts, Mr Paul Gleeson, said the concert would last two hours. Apart from three orchestral pieces, Dame Kiri would be on stage the whole time, he said. The New Zealand Symphony Orchestra will accompany her for the Wellington and Auckland concerts, and the Christchurch Symphony Orchestra will play in Christchurch because of the short notice of the South Island concert.