There’s always some­thing to do in this town we love, but these are the pick of the crop, and are cir­cled in red on our cal­en­dars. We’re count­ing the sleeps until next year’s events!

Welling­ton on a Plate

Hey, you wan­na eat at some of Welling­ton’s best restau­rants for only $25 for two cours­es AND a glass of wine? You want to dress up in Steam­punk out­fits to hang out with peo­ple at Weta? Or you want to eat a burg­er at every restau­rant in town? Boy howdy, do we have the event for you! In its sec­ond year, Welling­ton on a Plate spread itself around 80 dif­fer­ent venues, had stacks of one-off eat­ing events and filled our tum­mies in style. We’re already let­ting out our pants in antic­i­pa­tion of next year’s event.

Web­stock Con­fer­ence

It’s now a must-attend event for any­one work­ing on or with the web in New Zealand (and beyond). The Web­stock crew are pas­sion­ate about find­ing the very best speak­ers from NZ and around the world and bring­ing them to Welling­ton each year to share every­thing they know. The event is so well-man­aged that past speak­ers have been known to attempt to bribe organ­is­ers in hopes of return­ing to this mar­velous event. For a week in Feb­ru­ary, the city is flood­ed with extreme­ly tal­ent­ed good-look­ing weblebri­ties, and it reminds us why we love what we do.

World of Wear­ableArt

Loops, by Yogesh Chaud­hary & Man­as-Barve from India-

Some peo­ple go to WOW for the range of visu­al­ly stun­ning wear­able art cre­ations, oth­ers go to be thrilled by the amaz­ing stage­craft in the show. Either way, WOW is a key event on Wellington’s cre­ative cal­en­dar. It’s not just for the 40,000 peo­ple who get tick­ets to the show at TSB Are­na either – exhi­bi­tions of pre­vi­ous win­ners make the art more acces­si­ble to all of Welling­ton. With more inter­na­tion­al entrants widen­ing the cre­ative pool, WOW is guar­an­teed to be bet­ter every year.

Beer­vana

Image by Jed Soane http://www.flickr.com/people/jedsoane/

A cel­e­bra­tion of the diver­si­ty and qual­i­ty of brew­ing in NZ – and the array of peo­ple who are into it.  Beer­vana is in its ninth year now and offers guid­ance in the way of the brew with Beer Enlight­en­ment Sem­i­nars and food and beer match­ing pro­vid­ed by last year’s Welling­ton­ian of the Year Mar­tin Bosley.

2010 New Zealand Inter­na­tion­al Film Fes­ti­val

Yes we are a town of mak­ing films, but we are also a town of going to  the films, and the film fes­ti­val every year packs in the audi­ences.

This year the fes­ti­val opened with the World pre­miere of Predica­ment by Welling­ton film­mak­er Jason Stut­ter. In the mid­dle of win­ter for 2 weeks half the city stops nor­mal life to try and fit in a few films, for some it’s about squeez­ing in a lunchtime screen­ing or 2, or tak­ing a long lunch hour. For oth­ers it’s all about 3 or 4 films a day dur­ing the week­end and then there are the devot­ed fes­ti­val fans who are known to take annu­al leave so they can spend their hol­i­days at the movies.

The fes­ti­val also has great flow on effects as cin­e­mas pick up films that have become avail­able for release in New Zealand as a result of their pop­u­lar­i­ty dur­ing the fes­ti­val.