Register Your Event for the Manatū Taonga Arts and Culture Event Support Scheme

The Ministry for Culture & Heritage have made up to $22.5 million available to help provide confidence for the arts and culture events sector over the summer months. This is article was originally published in December 2021. With the shift in the COVID Protection Framework settings, anyone with upcoming events, tour and shows of over 100 capacity should read on & get in touch with MCH about registering.

The Ministry for Culture and Heritage Arts and Culture Event Support Scheme is about providing certainty for event organisers, confidence for vaccinated New Zealanders to attend and enjoy events, and reassurance for artists and crew that they can get paid if their events can’t go ahead as planned.  

It is part of  the  $37.5 million Delta Relief package announced in September 2021 by the Minister for Arts, Culture and Heritage, Hon Carmel Sepuloni,  to  help address immediate relief needs in the arts and culture sector.

To be covered by the Arts and Culture Event Support Scheme, event organisers must register their event with Manatū Taonga and have received confirmation of their event’s eligibility in advance of the scheduled event date. 

The Arts and Culture Event Support Scheme provides cover for event organisers to be able to recoup the non-recoverable losses of an event which is unable to be delivered at the scheduled time and location due to the event location being at ‘Red’ in the COVID-19 Protection Framework or under a government mandated local lockdown.

The Scheme focuses on helping with the costs of not being able to deliver the event on the scheduled dates, regardless of whether the event is cancelled or postponed.     

The Arts and Culture Event Support Scheme covers:

• Non-recoverable event costs such as cancellation fees or non-refundable deposits that have already been paid or are owing to suppliers (i.e. venue or equipment hire deposits)
• Reasonable costs incurred by the event organiser in the planning and development of the event.
• Full payments for artists, performers and production crew as if the event had occurred.