Festival Week is Here

Festival week is here
It’s been all go in the office over the weekend and we’re well under way - the Pouwhenua artists have been painting their billboards on the lakefront that look magnificent. They are all available to purchase – please contact the festival office if you are interested in buying one of these unique pieces of artwork.

Doc Ross's photo exhibition gets installed shortly so make sure you call into the Armstrong Room in the Lake Wanaka Centre for a look at these powerful portraits. Open from 10am on Tuesday morning in the Armstrong Room, for gold coin donation.

The performers have started arriving – our friends from Scottish Opera have arrived, and they are such a multi-cultural group – a Welshman, an Englishwoman, a Lithuanian and an Albanian! They will be delighting our younger audiences with their unique opera for babies aged 6-18 months.

Baby O plays in the Central Lakes Trust Crystal Palace on Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday and in St Peters Hall in Queenstown on Friday, Saturday and Sunday. All at 9.30 and 11am.

Gavin Bishop and Tanya Batt have arrived and will be visiting local schools across the region over the next week as part of our Schoolfest programme.

The Central Lakes Trust Crystal Palace is now built and the caterers are putting in the finishing touches. Flying Trestles will be serving coffee, muffins, hot and cold lunches and dinners from Tuesday morning, plus a range of Mt Difficulty wines, Quartz Reef sparkling wine and beer from Wanaka Beerworks.

We held our volunteer briefing at the weekend and so all of our fantastic volunteer ushers, office help and drivers are all geared up and raring to go. We have about 80 volunteers who put in at least 20 hours each and we just could not manage without our ‘unpaid lovers of the arts’.

Book Tickets
You can still book tickets online – www.festivalofcolour.co.nz or phone 03 443 4162. The Box office in the Lake Wanaka centtre will be open every day this week from 8.30am until 7pm for the collection of pre-paid tickets and to buy tickets.

The Cromwell Isite has tickets for Cromwell shows ($2 booking fee) and the Queenstown Isite has ticket for all the Queenstown shows ($2 booking fee and cash only). And the box office will be open at Queenstown Memorial Centre from 6pm from Tuesday to Sunday.

Festival pick of the week

This week administrator Anna McConville makes her pick ‘I’m so looking forward to Mike Oldfield’s Tubular Bells for Two. I was lucky enough to work on the Olympics in London last year and Tubular Bells was part of the opening ceremony; it gives me goose bumps whenever I hear it! I wasn’t born when it came out first time around in 1973, but most of the others in the office remember it! This version looks wicked – two Australians playing the whole thing on a variety of instruments, running round the stage. And it’s played at festivals all around the world, so I think it’s great to have it playing here. Have a look at this - its so cool'

Tubular Bells for Two plays at Queenstown Memorial Centre on Thursday 18 April at 8pm and Central Lakes Trust Crystal Palace, Wanaka on Friday 19 April at 8.30pm (this performance is sold out) . Tickets $38

Aspiring Conversations

There are still tickets left to many of our Aspiring Conversations talks including our panel of three politicians on Sunday at 2pm. In a change to the original programme Holly Walker of the Green Party is being replaced by Julie Ann Genter. She is the Green Party spokesperson for transport, commerce and broadcasting and is passionate about the opportunity we have to create a smart, green economy that works for all New Zealanders. She will be joined by Jacinda Ardern (Labour) and Nikki Kaye (National) for a feisty cross party debate on the issues for the next generation.

Politics – The New Generation take place in the Central Lakes Trust Crystal Palace on Sunday 21 April 2pm. Tickets $10

ENDS

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