The creditor-haunted Hero Charitable Trust is hailing Auckland's just-finished Hero Festival 2003 as an unqualified success, with financial figures due out within the next fortnight. Trust member Vaughan Arronjohn says the wide range of events in the Festival contributed not only to gay visibility and community awareness, but look set to make a significant contribution to debts incurred in past years. The Trust undertook no event organisation itself this year, but rather relied on licensing its various events with marketing input provided by a group of supportive gay business people. "It seems that the community not only supported the Hero events but the way in which they were managed and run was excellent," says Arronjohn, who expects a full financial statement of the Festival to be published “in the next week or so." A meeting with creditors, owed in excess of $140,000, will be held shortly thereafter.