Organisers of the Auckland Armageddon Expo have cancelled their planned 2022 event due to continued uncertainty about being able to hold the event at the ASB Showgrounds.
They'd been awaiting the outcome of an appeal to the High Court over the future of the venue.
Currently the ASB Showgrounds is not being used for events as its owners - the Cornwall Park Trust Board - revealed in June 2022 they are seeking to lease the land to a film company.
However, that decision was challenged in the High Court by Brent Spillane, the MD of XPO Exhibitions, who argued 5ha of the 8.2ha site was protected for the use of trade shows, exhibitions and entertainment under the Cornwall Park Recreation & Endowment Act 1982.
That is what organisers had been waiting on to see if their biggest show of the year could go ahead. They'd been hoping a decision would be released by September 30, which could mean the show would go on - but as of the organisers' deadline of 4pm on Friday, that hadn't happened.
That meant they have cancelled the Labour Weekend show.
Armageddon expo director Bill Geradts told Newshub that after being forced to cancel various shows due to COVID-19, he was absolutely gutted.
"After the last couple of years and having to deal with everything that's occurred with that, I thought we were done, but we could finally get back to, you know, just doing what people want us to do the way we want to do it.
"And yet here we are again. At the finish line virtually and not being able to get across" he said.
The four-day event has been held at Auckland's ASB Showgrounds for years and sees upwards of 60,000 attendees over the holiday weekend, which is said to bring significant money into the local economy.
On September 19, organisers posted on social media they were still awaiting a High Court decision on the future of the showgrounds which were put into liquidation in June 2021 after COVID-19 forced various event cancellations at the venue.
The High Court ruled in 2021 the venue must be "predominantly used as a public event space".
However, it's been shut since June 30, 2022 while the Cornwall Park Trust Board decided on its future, having proposed to lease the showgrounds to film company Auckland's Xytech Studio Management, in favour of an events-industry proposal.
Armageddon Expo director William Geradts said they could only hold the decision on the show's 2022 future until September 30. A smaller scale event was held mid-winter at the Showgrounds between June 10 and June 12, 2022, which could potentially be the last time Auckland held any Armageddon event.
Geradts said even if the ruling came in on Monday next week, it was too late.
"By all intents and purposes, we were supposed to cancel two weeks ago. With three weeks out, that's as close as we can get. There are so many exhibitors that need to plan, that even at this point, I think we've pushed it too far."
He was still optimistic that in some shape or form, Armageddon would continue in Auckland - hopefully at the ASB Showgrounds.
"I would like to think that we'll have some sort of stability after the next year because the venue exists and we've got a relationship with the film company and with the exhibition industry and with the trust.
"So I'd like to think that we'll be able to hold the show as we planned, but when that's going to be, honestly, hopefully it's next year. It could be. It could be two years. Could be three. Honestly, I don't know, it depresses me no end."
The Armageddon shows also ran in Wellington, Christchurch, Tauranga and Palmerston North but Auckland was the biggest and most profitable.
The show's future beyond 2022 in Auckland is still up in the air as a court decision could come at any time.
But Geradts said if the venue ceases to be available as an event space, it could be a death knell for the Auckland Armageddon Expo.
"I'm just trying to stick to what we were planning to start with and we'll be moving on to our own Wellington and Christchurch shows in December and that'll be our next focus really.
"For the next two months, we're probably just going to be recovering from this debacle and move on with the original shows to get them as good as we can."
Geradts also said he was extremely disappointed that no one from the council had been involved in protecting the show's future, despite their pleas and efforts to contact them.
"I haven't had a single conversation with anybody from the council that they haven't done a damn thing to make any difference to this at all in any level. And that's been so incredibly frustrating that we just haven't been able to get even them to get in there and make it happen because honestly, they could have, no matter what they say, they could have got in there and gone, 'Okay, let's get this venue moving'.
"And not one department, mayor or anybody just got off their ass and decided to do anything."
