Auckland celebrates as Greatest Weekend closes

Event organisers are pleased with how Auckland’s Greatest Weekend has gone, and it will end with a bang later this evening with an impressive fireworks display from the Sky Tower to close the Auckland Lantern Festival.

“Auckland has seamlessly delivered an incredible weekend of sporting, music and cultural events, which attracted around 200,000 people looking to be entertained,” says Rachael Carroll, Auckland Tourism, Events and Economic Development (ATEED) General Manager – Destination and Marketing.

“This weekend was promoted as the greatest weekend, and it certainly has been. There is much to celebrate from an event organisers perspective.”

· Just under 90,000 enthusiastic league fans attended the Dick Smith NRL Auckland Nines over two days at Eden Park, with 55 per cent choosing to travel by public transport
· 55,000 music fans were entertained at Rapture 2014: EMINEM, with an estimated 3000 people using the walking route between Eden Park and Western Springs
· Tens of thousands were entertained at Auckland Lantern Festival with movies at Queens Wharf and enchanting lanterns at Albert Park
· As of the time of this release, Police had made five arrests and 29 evictions from Eden Park over the two days.

Dick Smith NRL Auckland Nines
The inaugural NRL Auckland Nines tournament was a resounding success with rugby league fans enjoying the action-packed play at Eden Park.

“The feedback from the players, fans and neighbours has been very positive. Eden Park’s newest, annual fixture has started strong, and is set to only get bigger in 20115,” says David Kennedy, Chief Executive of Eden Park Trust.

Final figures for Eden Park are:

Day 1 - 43,600
Day 2 - 45,403
TOTAL 89,003

Rapture 2014: EMINEM
Regional Facilities Auckland’s Director of Stadium Management, Paul Nisbet, says the many months of planning for Eminem’s first ever New Zealand concert ensured the crowd of 55,000 fans experienced a world-class event.

“The positive feedback has been over-whelming. Western Springs Stadium was an outstanding venue and the crowd was fantastic. With over 27,000 people attending from outside Auckland, we wanted to put on a memorable night and we did,” says Paul Nisbet.

Auckland Lantern Festival
A spectacular fireworks display will close the Auckland Lantern Festival at around 10.30pm tonight.

The festival has attracted tens of thousands of people over the weekend.

Ends

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