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Planning an event

Temporary events like fairs and festivals help make Kāpiti a vibrant place to be.

If you're planning to use a public space, park or reserve for your event, you may need an event permit. The event permit process gives the Council confidence that activities comply with necessary requirements and legislation, and events are undertaken in a safe manner. A permit also clarifies responsibility and liabilities, secures the facility or space, and minimises disruption and impact on other users of public spaces.

Planning process | What you may need | Advertise your event | Community noticeboards | Community venues

Planning process

If you're planning a public event in Kāpiti, you need to advise us by completing our Temporary Event Application Form[DOCX 134 KB]. Depending on the type of event, we need to receive the application and supporting documentation no less than 60 days before the event, or 12 weeks for events involving a request for a road closure.

In your initial event planning phase think about what other consents, permit and approvals you may need. The information on this page will help you understand what else we might need before we issue an event permit. For example, you might need to get a resource consent or alcohol licence, or manage parking, traffic, building, waste minimisation or public health requirements depending on the type of event. Check out tips and resources for planning a zero waste event, too.

If you’re unsure about what you need to do, get in touch with us early and we'll be happy to help you work it out.

What you may need

Resource consent

A resource consent may be needed if the event is not held on Council property and doesn’t meet all of the permitted activity rules and standards of our District Plan.

Some examples of when a resource consent may be required include:

  • events on land not administered by Council
  • events occureing more than once in a 12-month period, or on more than three consecutive days in duration
  • events with amplified sound (PA system, sound system, musical instruments)
  • events that don't meet the vehicle movement and parking standards
  • events held outside the hours of:
    • 7am–10pm Monday to Thursday
    • 7am–11pm Friday or Saturday
    • 8.30am–10pm Sunday.

A resource consent may also be required for any temporary event if signage for the event doesn’t comply with rules and standards of the Operative District Plan 2021.

If you think your event may need a resource consent, contact our Duty Planner to discuss as soon as you can.

Traffic management plan

You may need a traffic management plan if your event:

  • affects vehicle or pedestrian traffic
  • increases traffic to a specific area (for example, concerts, sports events)
  • requires a road or footpath closure (for example, parades or marches).

If a full or partial road closure is required, a traffic management plan should be submitted 60 days before the event. Council is required by law to advertise all road closures; the cost of road closure advertising is payable by the Applicant/Organiser.

You can find out more at Traffic management plans. 

Event management and minimisation plans, and post-event waste analysis

If you're expecting 1000 people or more to attend your event over its duration (whether it's a single or multi-day event), you'll need to put together an event management and minimisation plan and a post-event waste analysis report. Regularly occurring recreational activities, such as weekly sports events, don't need to do this. 

The event waste plan must be submitted to Council for approval at least 30 working days before the event starts. 

Find out more at Event waste management.  

Building consents and exemptions

You'll need either a building consent or exemption from building consent if there any structures erected on the site such as:

  • tents or marquees over 100 square metres
  • stages, decks or platforms over 1.5 metres high
  • screens over 3 metres high
  • shade sails (canopies) over 50 square metres
  • lighting towers.

Requirements often not considered are:

  • access (configuration of steps, ladders to plant areas, both with handrails)
  • barriers (safety from falling barriers where the fall height exceeds 1 metre)
  • fire (tents and other enclosed spaces particularly where there are large numbers of people, cooking inside or adjacent to other buildings)
  • access and facilities for people with disabilities (for public events)
  • toilet facilities where there are pop-up cafés and the like.

Potentially the Council (territorial authority) could give a discretionary exemption from the need to obtain a building consent if the completed building work is assessed as likely to comply with the building code. This is a formal process and requires an application with detailed documentation to be provided to show how the structure will comply with the building code and how the construction on site will be monitored and by whom (is a CPEng engineer supervising?).

You should also get in touch with our Building team If your event is being held within a building and this isn’t an established use of the building. You may also need to provide a fire report for buildings accessed by people.

We are always happy to have a pre-application meeting to discuss proposals. Event organisers need to start the process early enough to get any consents in place prior to the event. There is a statutory timeframe of 20 working days for a building consent but the time in reality is dictated by the quality and completeness of the documentation provided in the application.

For more information on applying for a building consent, see our Building consents page.

Food stall registration

Food stall registration may be required if food is to be sold or served at the event. Anyone selling food at an event needs to register as a food business, and meet the same requirements as other registered food businesses (some exemptions apply).

You’ll find what you need to know about registration requirements, and food safety guidelines on our food stalls page.

Special alcohol licence

You'll need a special alcohol licence if you want to sell alcohol at your event. There are two types of special licence:

  • onsite special licence – allows the sale and supply of alcohol to be consumed at the event
  • offsite special licence – allows the sale of alcohol to be taken away and consumed at another place (this licence also allows free samples to be supplied).

Complete and submit an application for special licence along with the required fee at least 20 working days before the event.

Permit to operate

You will need a permit to operate before an amusement device (merry-go-round or other mechanised ride) may be operated. All amusement devices must have a certificate of registration issued by Worksafe which is to be displayed in plain view on the device at all times during operation.

Advertise your event

The most important thing you can do to advertise your event is to load the details in Eventfinda, New Zealand's number one event listing website. All of the main Kāpiti Coast event listing websites take feeds from this site, so by listing with Eventfinda your event will appear on many other sites.

Community noticeboards

Council has 10 community noticeboards that may be available to promote your event if certain criteria are met. To find out more about booking a noticeboard, see Community noticeboards.

Community venues

Council has a number of buildings available for hire. These buildings provide suitable venues for residents to meet for leisure, recreation, sport, cultural, social, and educational activities.

Find out about our range of venues at Community venues.