Bluff Oyster Festival tickets selling out

Wednesday, 27 April 2016

Bluff Oyster & Food Festival committee chairman John Edminstin at the festival site ahead of the 2016 event.

Oyster lovers better get in quick, as tickets for the Bluff Oyster & Food Festival are selling faster than ever before.

So fast, in fact, there may not be any tickets left for gate sales on the day.

Bluff Oyster & Food Festival Committee chairman John Edminstin said at the very least, the committee was going to have to consider restricting gate sales.

'We don't want to have to turn anybody away.'

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But with less than a month before the festival, that was looking like a very real possibility, with 3,000 of the 4,000 tickets available already sold.

Usually there were still about 2,000 tickets available in the final couple of weeks before the festival.

Bluff Promotions Officer Lindsay Beer said the festival venue had a capacity of about 4,000 people.

While it was possible the venue 'could hold a few more', the committee would have to decide whether to make more tickets available.

'You want the experience to be good for everyone, not too packed in,' Beer said.

Edminstin said he had no idea why this year tickets were selling so fast, but suggested the 2015 festival, the first at a new site and under cover, could have had an impact.

Last year's event showed festival goers that despite being a new venue, the show was equally as good as previous years, and word had possibly got around how wonderful the new venue was, Edminstin said.

'We've had good publicity [about the 2015 festival] even though the weather wasn't so smart.'

Edminstin has been helping to lead the festival for about nine years, and recalls a time when the committee was worried about costs.

'The first couple of years I was worried people wouldn't come, I didn't know how many [tickets] we'd sell.

'Now we don't even have to think about it.'

It was important to the committee to continue to keep ticket prices down, Edminstin said.

'Even though costs go sky high, we try to keep it affordable.'

The committee hoped to be able to keep paying off the debt on the new venue, and was considering connecting permanent electricity to the buildings at the site for lighting and sound, Edminstin said.

From concerts to weddings and a sheltered place for Bluff children to play T-Ball, the venue is not just the home of the Bluff Oyster Festival.

'It's been very pleasing for the committee, [the venue is] able to be used by the community,' he said.

The festival is on Saturday May 21 at the Lee St site in Bluff.

Tickets available from Ticket Direct, Barnes Wild Oysters in Invercargill, and the Foveaux Dairy in Bluff.

Adults $30, children under 14 years $10.