By TRACEY ROXBURGH
The only thing he needed was for the Alert Level to come to the party.
King Beats organiser Brendan Mulcahy says he’s ‘‘having a nightmare’’ with the Kingston
festival, planned for this Saturday, in light of the uncertainty around Covid-19.
Last year’s event saw ‘‘a bit of bad luck’’ with a storm softening ticket sales.
While the weather held for the overnight event, a deluge arrived early the morning after and caused carnage.
‘‘The guys building the stage were stuck in Kingston for a week because roads were closed.
‘‘This year was the year to come back and everything was looking amazing … until [Sunday].’’
Now in its fifth year, the event’s raised close to $40,000 for a variety of charities including the Wakatipu Youth Trust, Happiness House, Athol’s volunteer fire brigade and Garston Primary School.
‘‘It started as a little party of just my friends and now it’s getting pretty big and well known.
‘‘We can party to help others.’’
This year’s selected charity’s Central Lakes Family Services — Mulcahy hopes money raised can go towards supporting families suffering due to the impacts of Covid-19.
Each year the festival’s grown — this year there’ll be two stages set up, one main stage and a separate area for DJs.
On the main stage, Auckland-based band Racing and DJ Dick Johnson are planning to perform, along with Christchurch’s Dolphin Friendly and a host of local bands, including up-and-comers Trainsurfers, based in Arrowtown, and all-female group No Man’s Land, which made the top-20 of last year’s Smokefreerockquest representing Wakatipu High School.
‘‘It’s giving these young kids an opportunity to play at a festival.
‘‘It would be huge for them to be playing in front of a big crowd and just give them a push to dedicate their life to music.’’
Eight DJs are set to perform on the second stage, including BPM, Jang, Joey Mac, Phatkat, and Ribera.
Additionally, Mulcahy says there’ll be a mindfulness area, meditation and yoga, while the
Queenstown Mountain Bike Club’s erected a jump next to the main stage, and will bring its
airbag down to show off their tricks.
A bouncy castle for kids will be on site, along with food stalls.
Mulcahy says there’ll be two separate camping areas, one for party animals and a quieter spot for families.
Gates will open to the site, on State Highway 6, opposite the Kingston campground, at 11am, with entertainment starting at 12.30pm — the main stage action will carry on till about 2.30am and the DJ stage will keep going till 4am.
General admission’s $95 — tickets for the BYO, glass-free festival are available from events.humanitix.com/king-beats-festival
