50th Anniversary Of ASB Polyfest Starts Next Week

The 50th Anniversary of the world’s largest Māori and Pacific Island festival, the ASB Polyfest, gets underway next Wednesday at the Manukau Sports Bowl, with a record number of school groups entered.

This year’s ASB Polyfest will see 291 groups performing across six stages at the festival. These groups come from 77 schools from across the Auckland region and will see students compete with pride and passion, to win the honour of being the top school in their respective culture. Five schools from outside Auckland will also be performing in a non-competitive capacity, including two groups from Australia on the Te Whare Wananga o Awanuiarangi Māori Stage.

From its small beginnings 50 years ago where four schools took part, the ASB Polyfest has developed into one of the country‘s largest events, with over 11,000 students set to perform on a festival stage next week, to an audience of approximately 75,000 people over the four day duration.

The 50th Anniversary of the iconic festival starts next Tuesday, 1st April with a special flag-raising ceremony at 7:00am. This is followed by the festival Powhiri at 9am where festival guests (manuhiri) are welcomed by the hosts (Tainui & Pacific Island leaders).

Then on Wednesday, the Manukau Sports Bowl will come alive with colour and culture when the students hit the stage. The record number of performing groups this year is spread across the six stages - Cook Islands Stage (17 entries), Te Whare Wananga o Awanuiarangi Maori Stage (58 entries), Niue Stage (13 entries), University of Auckland Samoan Stage (37 entries), Unitec & MIT Tongan Stage (48 entries), and the Diversity Stage (118 entries) which features cultures such as Chinese, Fijian, Indian and Korean.

The ASB Polyfest is an important showcase of New Zealand’s diverse cultures and a celebration of youth performance. In addition to the traditional dance and kapa haka performances, the festival hosts speech competitions on each of the Pacific stages.

There are also 100 stallholders coming to the 2025 ASB Polyfest with arts and crafts, delicacies from across the Pacific and a host of activations providing services and information to festival goers.

ASB Executive Manager Commercial Partnerships Mark Graham is looking forward to seeing spine-tingling performances and meeting Auckland-locals at next week’s 50th Anniversary of the ASB Polyfest.

“With more than 11,000 students from across Auckland taking part, ASB Polyfest 2025 will be a wonderful cultural event for people of all ages. We’re looking forward to meeting students from different Polynesian cultures and seeing the colourful and truly remarkable performances on each of the six stages,” says Mark.

“ASB began its sponsorship of Polyfest 40 years ago and we’re thrilled to remain a big part of the festival today. As one of our longest and most-treasured partnerships, we are proud to support ASB Polyfest as it celebrates its 50th Anniversary this year”. The overall theme for this year’s festival is –

“He oha nō tua, he taonga tuku iho!”which translates to “LEGACY - a treasure handed down”

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