The Garden Party Festival Info & FAQs
Dates
Saturday 20 & Sunday 21 Feb, 2021 from 10am - 3.30pm (the Garden Party After Party on Sat 20 Feb is 6pm - 11pm)
Location & Getting there
Wellington Botanic Garden’s Soundshell, 101 Glenmore St, Kelburn (here’s a link to a map). We also have events at the Treehouse which is near the Soundshell (here’s the map). We encourage you to take public transport if you can to reduce parking. Here’s a handy link about parking, taking the Cable Car or a bus.
Festival Timetable
Entry to the Festival
Free or by koha if you can. There will be paywave machines on site that you can use.
Festival Artists
All artists and makers are profiled on the Garden Party home page here.
Food & Drink & Safety
You are welcome to bring you picnics and drinks (including alcohol) but please be responsible for your rubbish and be kind to all, including the beautiful environment. Drunk and disorderly behaviour will not be tolerated and result from your eviction from the festival site. Please no smoking or vaping on site.
Zero Waste
We are aiming to be a zero waste event and have two waste stations on site where you can deposit your compostables, plastics, glass and rubbish. Compostables and reusables are encouraged!
COVID-19
Please use the QR codes that will be at every entrance and other locations at the site. Please use the hand sanitisers on site too. Do not come if you are unwell please. If you start to feel unwell at the festival please alert festival staff before you depart the event.
Ticketed events
Most of the festival is free or koha except for a few smaller capacity gems such as artist Karl Maughan’s talk with Arihia Latham, here; Matt Morris talk about Garden Histories of Aotearoa here; Karl Maughan’s Walk + Talk + Afternoon tea here; Tarot (sold out! you can join the wait list); Bad Bitches of Wellington Walking tour (sold out! You can join a waitlist); and the Garden Party After Party here. Book online to reserve your spot or try your luck for a doorsale on the day.
How can you make a free or koha festival?
We can only do this because of collaborators and supporters: The Spinoff, Ocular NZ, Eleven, Wellington City Council, Creative New Zealand, Four Winds Foundation, Vic Books, Naumi Hotels and Taki Rua; and our own Verb Community.
If you choose to make a koha on the day then your cash goes straight into helping us make budget! And goes into other kaupapa such as Verb Festival and LitCrawl.
What happens if it’s bad weather?
We will make a call ahead of the festival (Thurs 18 Feb) on whether we need to move to our awesome wet weather plan B back up venue at National Library of New Zealand. If the forecast is for bad weather we’ll alert everyone on the home page, on Facebook, Instagram and Twitter.
What is Verb?
In a nutshell: we’re passionate about books, the arts, creativity, ideas, humans, artists and you. You can read about what we do and who we are on our About page here.