New Plymouth’s Bowl is simply the best

Long beloved by artists and Taranaki audiences, the Bowl of Brooklands has now been crowned New Zealand’s best large event venue.

The New Plymouth outdoor venue, which can hold up to 15,000 people, is most well known these days for hosting the three-day Womad festival.

But it has also hosted international superstars such as Elton John, REM, Cat Stevens, Tina

Turner, Crowded House, Paul Simon, and Sting. To name a few.

Some of the biggest crowds it gets are for Kiwi performers with Six60 and L.A.B. both selling the massive venue out at their recent concerts there.

The tree-lined venue picked up the best large venue accolade at the annual Entertainment Venues Association of New Zealand (EVANZ) awards.

The New Plymouth Districtowned venue was up against Auckland’s Eden Park and Hamilton’s Claudelands Oval.

In a press release New Plymouth District Council manager of community and customer services, Teresa Turner, said the award was fantastic recognition for the Bowl, which had been hosting events since 1958.

‘‘The Bowl just hits it out of the park as an awesome, world-class venue in our own backyard.

‘‘It’s one of our best-loved public places as well as a major booster for the local economy,’’ she said.

Covid has meant the Bowl has had a quiet 2021.

Womad was cancelled and

Christmas canned.

More recently Lorde pulled out of her national tour, that included a night at the New Plymouth amphitheatre in March next year.

Despite that setback, next year is already on track to be busier than 2021.

Womad is going ahead in March with an all-Kiwi line-up and L.A.B is still scheduled for January 8, and then Synthony on February 5.

Under the traffic light system those attending concerts will be required to be double vaccinated. in the Bowl was also

Tributes and donations have flowed in for the families of the Taranaki people killed in a crash in Levin earlier this month.

On the afternoon of Tuesday, November 9, four people from the region were killed when the van they were in collided with a truck on State Highway 1, near Kuku East Rd.

Three of the dead worked at New Plymouth’s Devon Intermediate School. They were caretaker Richard Parsons, teacher Cassandra Jordan, and teacher aide Tracey McKenna.

The fourth person was Joep Vergroesen, who owned Egmont Village’s Volcano View cafe.

The identity of the four is yet to be formally released by authorities.

In a statement on Wednesday police said they are working on behalf of the Coroner to identify the victims.

Yesterday a spokesperson for the Coroner’s Office said a final identification report was to be completed before formal identification could be confirmed.

‘‘These are active cases recently referred to the Coroners Court, so the coroner’s findings will take some time to complete after all the relevant reports and information have been collated and considered,’’ the spokesperson said in a written reply to questions.

On the day they died the two men and two women had been returning to Taranaki following a protest at Parliament.

A vigil was held at New Plymouth’s Ngāmotu Beach the night after the crash. About 150 people attended.

In the two-and-a-half weeks since the crash more than $20,000 has been raised between two Givealittle pages set up by family and friends of the dead.

One made for Parsons had raised around $11,400 by yesterday.

It said he left behind his wife and two teenage children.

‘‘This tragedy has come as a shock for the family and any funds will go towards funeral costs and the next chapter of their life without their beloved Richard,’’ the page read.

The second page, created for Jordan, McKenna, and Vergroesen, had raised about $9520.

‘‘These were loving parents, brothers, sisters, children, aunties, uncles and friends who will be sorely missed by all who knew them,’’ the page read.

One of Jordan’s children wrote: ‘‘She was truly inspiring to me and hundreds of people. She touched so many lives.’’