The cancellation by the Taupō District Council of the town’s annual Big Bang New Year’s Eve fireworks display is being put down to costs and environmental concerns.
A council Facebook post Thursday (August 13) morning sympathised in advance with predicted disappointment but noted there were various reasons for the cancellation, mostly to do with the budget.
“We’ve had a clear direction from elected members to keep rates down and focus on essential services only. In addition, we would also need approval to launch the fireworks from the lake and there are significant environmental concerns raised following last year’s event,” the announcement said.
“We have investigated a number of other options and locations, however holding a land-based display or a drone show would cost significantly more.”
In response to questions from LakeFM, the council’s media team said delivering the lake-based fireworks display last year cost approximately $53,000, including around $40,000 for the fireworks.
“Last year the delivery costs were $13,447.11,” the reply also noted.
“More than half of this was made up of traffic management costs and the rest was event monitoring, event delivery, security, portaloos, permit cost and advertising.”
The ‘significant environmental concerns’ included those raised by the Tūwharetoa Māori Trust Board (TMTB), who the council applied to for permission to use the lake for launching the fireworks, said the council response.
These related to fireworks debris and rubbish thrown over the lakefront bank by people gathering at Te Atea on New Year’s Eve to watch the display.
Council events manager Steve Giles, speaking on LakeFM on Friday morning, agreed the decision was unpalatable to many people but the steer from the community was “very clear about wanting council to find efficiencies and savings.”
Online responses to the announcement included those in support relating to reduced stress on pets and cost savings with others decrying the loss of the spectacle – one business even offered a sponsorship pledge of $2,000 which amounts to about 3.7 per cent of the cost.
Many events were delivered by the community, said Giles, and the council hadn’t cancelled public fireworks displays per se.
“If the community feels strongly enough, if there is a group out there that want to deliver fireworks, awesome. We will happily sit down and facilitate and work around that on the outside. What's been removed is the budget for us to put forward into the delivery of fireworks.”
While costs to put on such a display had doubled over the last decade, the council had been fortunate in being able to reduce these by using the lake which made establishing exclusion zones a lot easier, said Giles.
But people needed to be aware that over $50,000 was the quantum in sums of money needed.
“(So) $2,000 from a business absolutely helps,” Giles said, referring to the business offering online, “But we're going to need 40 more of those businesses to step up if we want to deliver this for the community.”
The council figures on a land-based operations, akin to the Lake Taupō Rotary fireworks display at Guy Fawkes was about an $80,000 to $90,000 exercise, he said.
“We were delivering for about $50,000.”
Regarding the environmental concerns, Giles said the concerns of the TMTB (who own the lakebed and the space the water occupies) were “no different than if I had a swimming pool in my backyard and you wanted to have a party in it, it'd be my choice as the landowner to say, yeah, you can do that or no, you can't.”
A report into the impact of the fireworks on the lake indicated lot of fireworks debris as well as public waste, Giles said.
“So, we bring 6,000-7,000 plus people down to the lake. We do sweeps of the lake the next day, a lot of takeaway food wrappers, a lot of just general waste… And so that has been cited by Tūwharetoa as concern for them and around the environmental stability and sustainability of the lake. So, if we want to do it on the lake, it is about partnering with Tūwharetoa.”
Ecological tests with the pyrotechnic company that had delivered the fireworks for many years had indicated no heavy metal, said Giles.
“It's potassium. It's magnesium. We've had heavier metals sitting in the lake from geothermal activity… The reality is we were asked and tasked to find savings across council, and this is one of those savings.”
The August 13 council announcement also warned readers of other potential cancellations.
“While we hate delivering this bad news, it's likely there will be other projects or community events that may need to be cancelled or reduced as we look to further reduce council spending. These will need to happen as we move towards trying to deliver council activities in a rates-capped environment.
“There are still lots of things to look forward to over summer and throughout the year including the Lake Taupō Cycle Challenge, the two-day Le Currents Music, Culture and Arts Festival, and of course the 2027 Taupō Summer Concert.”
The town’s other major organiser of festivities involving fireworks – Lake Taupō Rotary – has not responded yet to contact from LakeFM regarding any rekindling of its previous Guy Fawkes events in 2026.
Rotary announced the cancellation of its planned 2025 event in mid-October last year noting that it operated the event each year solely on volunteer support and sponsorship, with the gate entry fees covering only a portion of the event costs.
“Due to the downturn in the economy in 2025, the sponsorship that Lake Taupo Rotary requires for the ‘Big Bang’ fireworks event is not available. It has been confirmed that no funding is available from previous sponsors, Taupō District Council, nor are there any prospective sponsors.”
It had been unable to secure a financial package that would see the event break even, said Rotary then, but it intended to start seeking sponsorship for the event in November 2026.
The Tūwharetoa Māori Trust Board has also been approached for comment.
