Wellington on a Plate Reprise

The Wellington On A Plate food festival brought in more out-of-town visitors and sold $176,677 more in tickets this year than last year.

Over the two weeks in August that the capital hosted the Visa-sponsored festival, people who came from outside the city spent more than $3.17 million.

There were 106 foodie events around town that brought in $808,677 in ticket sales, up from $632,000 last year and $412,000 in 2010. About 74 per cent of festival attendees were from the Wellington City area, but the number of visitors from out of town was up 32 per cent.

In the four years it has been running, the culinary festival has brought in more than $5.5m of spending to Wellington.

Across the city, 108 restaurants - Dine Wellington partners that had special deals and menus created to tie in with the festival - reported a 21 per cent increase in turnover as a result.

"The hospitality industry, Wellingtonians and visitors have all embraced the festival from day one, and we're all reaping the rewards," Wellington City Council economic portfolio leader Jo Coughlan said.

PartyPerfect worked with award winning Simon Wislang of Melt Restauarant (ex Rumours) doing the Kapiti Vintage event. Keep watching our blog and Facebook page for next year's event!

 There were 20,470 festival-goers and 5000 more attended free events at Moore Wilson's store. Attendance numbers did not include all free events this year so cannot be compared with last year's 25,000 festival-goers.

(Adapted from original article in DomPost, Jazial Crossley)