One Love Festival is hopeful of going ahead at the start of April after the event this upcoming weekend was nixed due to New Zealand’s move into the red setting of the Covid-19 Protection Framework.

The new date for the Tauranga Domain-hosted festival is now the weekend of April 2 and 3, however, the event will be cancelled if New Zealand remains in the red setting at the end of March.

One Love looked like being one of the survivors of the festival season after filling international artist spots, who were unable to perform due to MIQ concerns, with top local artists such as L.A.B and Kora.

However, the restrictions of the red setting have, for now, thwarted those plans.

“While we were prepared for this, we’re still gutted, especially given how close we were to welcoming everyone to One Love 2022,” says the One Love operator and director of Reggae Love Ltd Glenn Meikle.

“We’d pulled out all stops for this year’s event and it was looking to be an epic celebration.”

Glenn is hopeful the event will be able to go ahead in April, although only one international act, Fiji, will remain on the card.

“Of course, the health and safety of all our One Lovers and our staff and contractors is paramount and, as such, we thankfully had a postponement date ready to go.

“The good news is that the full line-up of local artists will move to our new date.”

This year’s edition will be cancelled if New Zealand remains in the red traffic light setting on March 25. One Love would then begin planning for next year’s event - with ticket rollovers and refunds available.

All tickets for this year’s event will be automatically moved to the new dates and those unable to attend the new dates can receive a refund of the face value of tickets.

The refund will be available for 48 hours from 8:30am Wednesday, February 2.

Source: SunLive.co.nz