Glory Days at Gloriavale
| Greymouth Star | Brendon McMahon |
Mid-winter concerts staged by the Gloriavale Christian Community over 25 years became a highly popular feature of West Coast life. In this retrospective including images from the 2016 concert, Greymouth Star Chief Reporter, looks back.
Beginning in 1993 Gloriavale extended a hand to anyone in the wider community to while away a winter’s day at Haupiri while being personally entertained.
The first concert drew 330 but as it grew several thousand people would be entertained in what became a regional buzz at the chance to be invited to the Gloriavale concert every second winter. This saw a huge variety of curious Coasters turn out for what became a highly rated and popular local experience. And the concerts helped reinforce existing friendships and associations between the Coast community and the Haupiri group. Patrons sat back to enjoy live and technically flawless entertainment over a couple of hours.
Each concert goer would be personally greeted at the door and treated as a special guest for the day. This included a four-course meal, personally served by Gloriavale members at their seat. And everyone left with a loaf of freshly baked bread.
Meantime, countless Gloriavale members poured their creative hearts into staging the performances after many months of beavering to rehearse, sew and construct costumes and sets. Above that was the huge catering exercise to feed thousands each winter series.
The variety concerts drew on a rich tapestry of literary history including from the Christian tradition as messages of redemption were portrayed via innovative set-pieces of comedy and drama, music and dance, followed by a message and the opportunity for the audience to dialogue with the Gloriavale leadership.
The community drew the final curtain on its concerts in 2018 when the Lake Haupiri community finished on a high with 6700 people attending the twice-a-day concerts.
This week a Gloriavale spokesman, Peter Righteous said the mid-winter concerts had been highly valuable but also a huge pull on resources as whole families diverted their attention to the two-yearly production. Peter said the West Cost may not see such concerts again due to the prolonged period of change at the community impacting its circumstances since 2018. “There’s a few people who would really like to but our main problem is time and money,” Peter said.” We are kind of constrained now…I don’t see it’s going to come back on stream any time soon.”
He said the community focus had shifted to bolstering and supporting its families in particular after a long period where everyone, including busy mothers, had devoted a huge chunk of time to produce the concerts. Gloriavale had now looked beyond the concerts to be present to the wider community events in other ways.
As a result it has increasingly forged links by showing up to assist with local community fundraising at the likes of market days, Peter said. At the same time individual Gloriavale members had stepped up to join community service groups like the Moana Volunteer Fire Brigade and Land Search and Rescue. “We have been kind of moving into that realm. “We didn’t want to be abandoning our contact with the local community — we thought the concerts were really important for that local contact (however) it became untenable. “I think there’s just a different emphasis on life — giving ourselves to our kids and things like that.”
Peter noted the community now has 20 families homeschooling too which means many parents have less times for things like sewing costumes. “There’s just not time. There’s a whole basic shift in the community’s priorities and the lifestyle has changed a little bit.” Back in winter 2016 the Greymouth Star was invited to capture images of the concert which that year had the theme Candlelight Castle: Where Stories Come Alive. Many excellent images from Gloriavale photographers were also provided at the time and reproduced in this retrospective.