Where to watch the All Blacks

If you did­n’t fly down to Christ­ch­urch for the first test, don’t have tick­ets to the Wel­ling­ton game (Sat­urday 2nd July) or can­’t be doing with all those Auck­landers for the final test (Sat­urday 9th July) then how about these options.

Cour­tenay Place, “Party Zone”
Cour­tenay Place will be closed to traffic and trans­formed into an enter­tain­ment zone through­out the test match week­end, 1st – 3rd July. There will be live music and free per­form­ances.

Fri­day: 8pm-mid­night

• Deva Mahal
• Ghost­plane
• Whop­per Chop­per Sound Sys­tem

Sat­urday: noon-mid­night

• Game live on big screen!
• Busk­ers all day
• RNZAF Jazz Band
• Wel­ling­ton Pipe Band
• Whop­per Chop­per Sound Sys­tem
• Batu­cada Band
• plus OdESSA
• The Reveals
• Avi­at­or … and more!

Road Clos­ures
To accom­mod­ate the large crowds expec­ted in the city and to ensure ped­es­tri­an safety, there will be sev­er­al oth­er streets closed as well – from 7.00pm Fri­day 1st July to 8.00am Sunday 3rd July – leave the car at home, use pub­lic trans­port instead.

• Cour­tenay Place (Tarana­ki Street to Cam­bridge Ter­race)
• Tory Street (Wake­field Street to Tennyson Street)
• Blair Street (all)
• Allen Street (par­tial clos­ure)

All busi­nesses with­in the clos­ure zone will be open for busi­ness as usu­al.

Michael Fowl­er Centre – FREE
Missed out on tick­ets to the Lions Wel­ling­ton test? Don’t des­pair – get your­self tick­ets to the Big Screen Black­out – a free fam­ily event organ­ised by Wel­ling­ton City Coun­cil – and enjoy the test match live on the big screen.

Doors open at 5pm and the fun kicks off at 5.30pm at the Michael Fowl­er Centre on Sat­urday 2 July. Every­one through the doors between 5–6pm can enter to win four test match tick­ets. The win­ners will be announced at around 6.15pm and then chauf­feured to West­pac Sta­di­um in time for kick-off.

Enter­tain­ment includes Frankie Stevens as MC, and the Rol­licks – a Rolling Stones trib­ute band to amuse the adults, and free face-paint­ing and per­formers to amuse the kids. To help get people into test match fever the Michael Fowl­er Centre will be decked out in All Blacks col­ours and fun sta­di­um foods, such as hot dogs, chips and pop­corn will be avail­able for pur­chase.

“We want to cre­ate a real sense of atmo­sphere as close to the Sta­di­um exper­i­ence as pos­sible,” says City Coun­cil Event Co-ordin­at­or Melody Scales. “We’re encour­aging people to dress in black and be ready to cheer on our boys.”

Because the Big Screen Black­out is a fam­ily func­tion no alco­hol will be sold or allowed into the ven­ue.

Free tick­ets are avail­able at Tick­etek (Michael Fowl­er Centre out­let only) from Monday 20th June. There is a lim­it of four tick­ets per per­son. Phone book­ings will not be accep­ted. Around 2000 tick­ets are avail­able.

“We’re expect­ing tick­ets to go fast,” says Ms Scales. “So people need to get a wriggle on if they don’t want to miss out.”

Bars in town
We at Wel­ling­ton­ist Towers have been vis­it­ing a dif­fer­ent bar for each of the pro­vin­cial games – all in the ser­vice of our loy­al read­ers you under­stand. Standout bars so far have been:

• The Malt­house
• The Black Harp
• Shed 22 (Brew­ery Bar)
• Bar Edward’s, New­town

We urge you all to pass on your recom­mend­a­tions by leav­ing a com­ment to this post­ing.

Be aware that some bars have entry restric­tions and the Barmy Army have nom­in­ated Loaded Hog, Black Harp and Hotel Bris­tol as their “HQs”.

Read­ing cinema
The fol­low­ing is taken from their ‘fly­er’ at the front desk (Cour­tenay Cent­ral, Wel­ling­ton) – min­im­um 10 tick­ets per group.

Option One – $8 per tick­et
Deluxe main­stream seat / Foods and bar facil­it­ies by arrange­ment

Option Two – $20 per tick­et
Regency Laz-Z-Boy Seat / Access to soft drink and pop­corn self-ser­vice area / Food and bar facil­it­ies avail­able

Avail­able for the three tests with the Tri-Nations home games to be con­firmed. More test dates pos­sible – please enquire about screen­ing oth­er sim­il­ar events. Con­tacts: John or Moana on 04–801 4602

At your own place – FREE
If you find the pro­spect of being sur­roun­ded by thou­sands of rugby fans all try­ing to get a view of the game there’s always your own place. Sky will have the game live with TV3 show­ing the excel­lent delayed cov­er­age free-to-air.

Invite ya mates (maybe a few Poms for added spice), get the piz­zas in the oven, pop open the beer/wine/OJ and settle back into the most com­fort­able chair in town – your own.