Mary Hush VII is Postponed

Dear friends, it is with a heavy heart that I must share news of a journey delayed. Our gathering for April 5th has to be postponed, because while Time was on our side, the space to host us is not. Please read on to hear from the team that has been working around the clock to bring us together again. I will be in touch again soon as more clarity about our new space and date reveals itself. Yours fondly, Mary x

Event Postponement

There is no easy way to say this. This sucks. Big Time. The property manager of the MHVII site flew down from Auckland to meet with us yesterday to finalise logistics. After putting things off for yet another day, they emailed this afternoon with another delay/excuse, and retracted their support for us to proceed as planned.

Since January, we had become familiar with the site, working closely with the architect, covering every component of delivering a safe and beautiful event. Over the last month, we’ve had contributors, sound techs and lighting crews also get familiar with the site.

Although the architect has been nothing but supportive every step of the way, the property manager has presented barriers and excuses, not solutions. We communicated with them that we value ourselves, our work, and our community; and we only want to proceed if we are actually supported to do so. Although they’ve claimed to see the value we’re bringing, their actions and sudden unworkable limitations prove otherwise.

This short-notice change of plans means the option to swap to our backup venue is also off the table due to a necessary legal proceeding that is required (a CPU: “Certificate of Public Use”) and cannot be issued in this short amount time. So we reached the difficult decision to postpone Mary Hush VII: It’s Time. At this stage we cannot name a new date.

As you can imagine, this communication from the property coming in so late in the game comes as a shock and a massive disappointment to us, so please bear with us over the next few weeks as we work on picking up the pieces.

To all of you who have already bought tickets, travel, accommodation: we’re truly sorry for the change of plans. Please read below for your options forward. We want to do everything we can to reduce the impact this has on you, but also want to acknowledge with full transparency how this affects us. Our core team currently consists of seven creatives who have spent months planning Mary Hush on top of our jobs, lives, and commitments; doing this purely out of a labour of love. We curate Mary Hush events to the best of our abilities, and distribute the funds from ticketing to contributors, artists, technicians, etc. in our community who go above and beyond. We consider this the success, and although we have broken even financially every event, it’s always down to the wire, and the core team has only once been compensated ($500 each from MH VI: The Holographic Hotel). We’ve treated each Mary Hush event as an opportunity to start with nothing but an empty building, and a mostly empty bank account. Our aim is to go through a creation process where at the end, the profits go towards a profit-share to contributing artists and some funds going to select reforestation projects. In terms of this event, after 4 months of preparations, we’ve spent approximately $13,000 on necessary upfront costs.

We hope this transparency helps you appreciate that it will take some time to recover before picking a future date, and we intend on doing so only when we feel confident we can do so with our social, mental, and financial wellbeing in mind.

Ticket extensions, refunds, small gathering on April 5th

We understand the disappointment. The entire Mary Hush collective shares this feeling, and we're working on new pathways forward.

If you already bought a ticket, we offer you the following options:

Option 1: Keep your ticket and carry it forward to the new date

• Your current ticket will grant you access to the postponed Mary Hush event, still themed “It’s Time”, allowing for all the prepared art/music around the theme to be shared (new date to be announced)

• Additionally, we’ll be hosting a small party on the original date (April 5th in Christchurch), free for those choosing to keep their tickets - it won’t be a full-blown Mary Hush event, but a way to gather in spite of the situation. More details to follow.

Option 2: Refund

If you prefer to reclaim your ticket price, we honour this choice and will process a refund of your ticket. If it’s within your capacity to support us, you can also request a partial refund - with the remainder going to cover some of the accrued debt mentioned above.

 Head here for (partial) refunds 

Personal losses from the postponement

We want to acknowledge any duress this may have caused, and understand that some of you will have incurred travel costs to join us for this event. If you’ve bought a ticket and are from outside of Christchurch, you may already have arranged flights, ferries and/or accommodation. Hopefully, some of the following options are available to you:

• Reschedule your flights/ferries/accom for a later date.

• Transfer your travel booking to another traveler who might benefit from the journey.

• Request a refund directly from your airline or travel provider.

• Keep your travel plans and enjoy some time exploring Christchurch and surroundings, and then join us for the small party mentioned above on April 5th to connect with others from the Mary Hush community across Aotearoa in a more intimate setting.

To wrap up, these last few days have been especially challenging for us, so please be patient and kind with us as we move through the admin and logistics with this change. Don’t hesitate to reach out to us via email to whois@maryhu.sh, and we’ll do our best to get back to you. Please do not contact the core crew directly through other messaging platforms, we’d prefer to keep comms in email rather than personal messages on FB etc. please.

When the dust has settled and we have recuperated, we will pick things up and keep moving towards bringing Mary Hush VII to life. We will do our best to use this time wisely and kindly, and hope you can do the same.

With love and deepest gratitude for your support so far from each of us personally,

P, R, C, L, L, T, D