NZ Cider Festival postponed to 2022
Organisers of the New Zealand Cider Festival have announced that this year’s event will be postponed until February 2022 due to the ongoing uncertainty and risks associated with the Delta variant of COVID-19.
The Festival was scheduled to take place in Hawke’s Bay in November. The NZ Cider Festival organising committee and the NZ Fruit Wine Cider Makers Association have now confirmed the new date as Saturday, 12th February 2022.
The Cider Makers Association says the Association AGM 2021 and the Annual Fruit Wine & Cider Awards will still take place on November 12 in Napier. Judging for the awards starts next week.
Festival Director, Shelley Haring, says that postponing the Cider Festival was a difficult decision to make. "Advance ticket sales for the festival indicated that people are excited to get together and celebrate the best of NZ Cider. However, with the festival being so close the uncertainty around when large festivals can happen makes it difficult to plan ahead to ensure there is no impact for our event, our Cider Producers, our sponsors, suppliers and our attendees and so we had to make the call now.”
Haring says they are following the Government announcements closely with regards to a vaccine passport requirement for people to be able to attend festivals and events over the summer.
“This is a positive development towards allowing large events to go ahead, we are still awaiting official information on how this will be managed and what it will look like.”
Organisers say that tickets for the November event will automatically be transferred to the new date and refunds are available for those unable to attend in February.