Hikuwai Sounds Deep in the Red
By Justin Wong (he/him) AUTSA’s orientation concert, Hikuwai Sounds, is expected to lose more than $120,000, with the association overestimating the number of paying attendees and diverting from a breakeven approach. The concert was originally scheduled during Week 1 on March 5, but it was postponed to April 16 after Auckland was placed under Alert Level 3 restrictions. Debate understands only 102 out of the approximately 1,200 concert attendees paid for a ticket. The rest got free entry as AUTSA gave away tickets on campus days before the event. Budget documents of the past three orientation concerts, released by AUTSA to Debate, reveal the student association spent $179,290 on this year’s Hikuwai
Sounds despite uncertainty around COVID-19 Alert Levels in Auckland, but they do not include revenue figures. The finalised expenditure is yet to be released. AUTSA’s Acting General Manager Simon Bell told Debate the exact numbers are not yet available, but ticket revenue is around $6,000 while the event made “roughly” $50,000 from sponsorship deals, while breaking-even and profitmaking is not the association’s intention for the concert. “The intent is to provide an activity for the students and has no hope of making money.” He told AUTSA’s Student Representative Council (SRC) in April that Hikuwai Sounds was “not a moneymaking
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