Strategy

Vision and purpose

Our vision is that New Zealand is internationally recognised as a desirable major events destination, delivering world-class events that generate economic and social outcomes, enhance our global reputation, and enrich the lives of New Zealanders.

The New Zealand Government invests in major events to achieve specific outcomes that align with government priorities. Investments are made through the Major Events Fund, a contestable $60 million five-year fund.

Events are usually organised and delivered by the private and voluntary sectors without the need for government involvement. In some instances, government involvement is needed to secure a major event through a bidding process. In other cases, government investment helps create more benefits for New Zealand. Accelerating and extending these wider benefits is a key reason government invests in major events, and this is primarily achieved through the development of leverage and legacy programmes.  

Major event priorities

Five priorities guide Major Events Fund investments. 

1. Securing economic benefits – By securing economic benefits from the major events we invest in, we will help to build a stronger, more productive economy and support investment and exports.
2. Driving international exposure – By utilising major events to drive exposure of New Zealand in key markets, our investments will provide opportunities to enhance New Zealand’s international brand, advance diplomatic interests, and promote New Zealand as a visitor destination, place to do business, and invest.
3. Building national pride – Our major events will create vibrancy, enhance social cohesion and connectedness, and celebrate our unique identity to build national pride.   
4. Enhancing our reputation –- our reputation as an exceptional international major events host will be enhanced globally by consistently presenting world class events, and the domestic events sector will be vibrant with a strong pipeline of future events.   
5. Advancing government priorities – By realising direct event, and leverage and legacy opportunities, our major events will advance numerous government priority areas, including the sport and recreation and arts and culture strategies.  

Evaluation

We use qualitative and quantitative measures to evaluate performance. This includes cost-benefit analysis (for example, the net economic return for every dollar spent), international visitor activity, broadcast and media exposure in key markets, the realisation of trade and diplomacy opportunities, sentiment, reputation and engagement monitoring, and progress towards cross-portfolio government objectives.

Major Events Fund criteria

To be eligible for Major Events Fund investment, an event must:  

• Be a major event by government’s definition: Government defines a major event as an event that is, or has the potential to be, internationally significant by which it generates international interest or visitation from outside New Zealand, profiles New Zealand on an international platform and offers elements that are uniquely New Zealand.  
• Be a sports, arts or cultural event delivered onshore. 
• Meet baseline application requirements. Eligibility and criteria

To be prioritised for investment, an event must align with one of three investment focus areas. Eligibility and criteria

1. Events that deliver net national economic benefits.
2. Sports major events that contribute to high-performance outcomes, whilst aligning with Sport New Zealand’s strategy.
3. Events that create opportunities to profile and celebrate New Zealand’s national identity and cultures, our creative talent, ingenuity, diversity and adventurous spirit. 

Leverage and legacy

Leverage and legacy are the broader and longer-lasting national and local benefits that can be realised through an event.

The concept of leverage and legacy links to understanding and acknowledging the wider impact that an event can deliver to the community and country beyond the core event delivery.

There are three different categories of benefits that can be achieved by an event:

• Direct benefits: These are benefits for the respective sport/art, region, and country that will occur simply by virtue of the event taking place. The achievement of these benefits sits within the scope of the event’s operational plan, so no additional actions are required.   
• Leverage opportunities: These are the additional benefits that can be secured from the event or its platform. These benefits are likely to sit outside the operational planning for the event, and additional action is required to secure and maximise the benefits for the respective sport/art, region, and country.   
• Legacy opportunities: These are the lasting or long-term benefits that can be secured from the event, or the attention created by the event that can be realised beyond the event. Exploring these opportunities requires a partnered approach between key stakeholders and a deliberate and focused action plan to ensure lasting positive benefits are delivered to the respective sport/art, region, and country.  

Events receiving Major Event Fund investment must establish a leverage and legacy committee (with Crown partners where there is strategic alignment and benefit potential) and must develop leverage and legacy plans that identify opportunities, and the actions required to realise the benefits government is seeking.

New Zealand's hosting proposition

New Zealand has a reputation as a safe, reliable, honest, friendly, authentic, and engaged host nation that can deliver unique experiences unrivalled elsewhere around the globe.  

We are an innovative, creative, agile, and adventurous nation and an excellent partner for new international major event initiatives that align with our objectives and values. 

Whilst New Zealand is geographically remote, our events still attract significant numbers of international attendees. This can be attributed to the combination of event tourism (travelling to attend the event) as well as New Zealand being a ‘bucket list’ destination. Events leverage our destination as a unique selling proposition to encourage participation.

Our nation celebrates and amplifies our indigenous Māori culture and New Zealand values to create a point of difference. The inclusion of authentic cultural considerations and elements is viewed positively by event rights holders who want their events to connect with participants and audiences.  

New Zealand has dedicated legislation to protect major events from ambush marketing and provide protections for commercial partners and sponsors (the Major Events Management Act 2007). 

As a nation, we have many strengths, principles, and ethics that can add considerable strategic value to our event partners. New Zealand is recognised for integrity, diversity, and inclusion as pioneers for human rights and for our collective focus on protecting and caring for our environment for a sustainable future.

Portfolio by design

To actively curate a balanced portfolio, prospecting activity is conducted under a ‘portfolio by design’ approach, considering factors such as seasonal and regional distribution, balance of content (sport versus art and culture, sport code and genre variety), government objectives and strategic themes. 

Criteria presented in the three investment focus areas guide prospect identification.

Clustering events by themes within the portfolio can amplify benefits for New Zealand and accelerate the advancement of government objectives in targeted areas. Aligning events offers opportunities to raise New Zealand’s profile globally, provide consistency of product to the sector and the community, as well as offering greater value to event owners as the cumulative energy further leverages and supports each event. The focus on women’s and girls’ sporting events has demonstrated how the aggregated value of clustered events can exceed that of ad-hoc programming.

Prospecting work is conducted with stakeholder partners at national sport, arts, and cultural organisations and host cities, using a ten-year lens to identify specific events of interest is conducted with stakeholder partners at national sport, arts and cultural organisations and host cities.

The portfolio includes a limited number of recurring events that drive strong economic, reputational, and social benefits whilst providing continuity for the sector.

There is an increased focus on nurturing and supporting homegrown event products to allow intellectual property to be owned and retained for New Zealand.

Mega event opportunities generally require significantly greater investment of time and money to secure and are funded via a separate Cabinet process (outside of the Major Events Fund). These events provide greater economic, trade and tourism opportunities, engage with a broader base of New Zealanders, and are internationally significant events that can derive national pride in their hosting and help elevate the status of New Zealand on the global stage. Due to cost and scale, we typically aim to secure one mega event every three to four years. The ICC T20 Cricket World Cup 2028 is secured as the next mega event for New Zealand.

Operational and strategic partnerships

Strong partnerships and relationships with the private sector, voluntary sector and across the Crown support delivery of this strategy. This includes operational partnerships to identify and realise leverage and legacy opportunities and strategic relationships to maximise benefits.

New Zealand Major Events works with agencies involved in sports diplomacy to strategically leverage opportunities linked to Major Events Fund investments. Investments in onshore major events that form part of an international circuit can provide New Zealand Inc. with access to leverage opportunities at offshore events. Collaboration with government agencies ensures cross portfolio benefits can be realised.

Major Events Strategy downloadable PDF [PDF, 293 KB]