Wel­ling­ton Zine­fest annu­al zine mar­ket and fest­iv­al returns to Mighty Mighty this Sat­urday, Novem­ber 17th. Now in its 6th year, Wel­ling­ton Zine­fest is New Zeal­and’s longest run­ning fest­iv­al of zines.

‘Zines’ or ‘fan­zines’ are self-pub­lished magazines cre­ated to high­light music scenes, fan­doms, act­iv­ism, craft, cre­at­ive writ­ing or simply the zinemaker’s own oddball obses­sions. Zine­fest brings togeth­er zine­makers and oth­er inde­pend­ent pub­lish­er and musi­cians from Wel­ling­ton and bey­ond to show case their work and present it to the pub­lic. The zine eth­os tends to be imme­di­ate and DIY focused, with many zine avail­able for sale at as little as a gold coin, or swapped for free for oth­er zines.

As well as per­us­ing zines, mem­bers of the pub­lic can join in at Zine­fest col­lab­or­at­ive zine work­shop table. All mater­i­als are provided and every­one is encour­aged to join and cre­ate a page to be com­piled into a zine. The res­ult­ing zine is sent out to all con­trib­ut­ors.

Zine makers hard at work, Wel­ling­ton Zine­fest 2011

Wel­ling­ton City Lib­rar­ies superb zine col­lec­tion is no doubt a con­trib­ut­ing factor to Wellington’s enthu­si­ast­ic zine scene. Once again the Library’s zine team will be at Zine­fest intro­du­cing their zine lend­ing lib­rary to the pub­lic.

A ‘Best of the Fest’ is awar­ded to the most out­stand­ing zine on the day. Pre­vi­ous ‘Best of the Fest’ win­ners indic­ate the high cal­ibre of art and writ­ing that does into Wel­ling­ton zine mak­ing. 2010 win­ner Han­nah Sal­mon was recently awar­ded the 2012 New Zea­l­and Art Show Emer­ging Artist Award, and last year’s win­ner 11 year old Zora Patrick was an invited guest at Buncheon Inter­na­tion­al Com­ic Fest­iv­al in South Korea earli­er this year.

Wel­ling­ton Zine­fest began in 2007 organ­ised by Kylie Buck and the Wel­ling­ton City Lib­rar­ies. Since then it has been organ­ised by a rotat­ing com­mit­tee of volun­teers. Interest has grown rap­idly each year, with Wel­ling­ton Zine­fest 2012 host­ing a record 45 zine stalls. The Wel­ling­ton event has been instru­ment­al in inspir­ing zine­fests in Auck­land, Christ­ch­urch and Duned­in. The zine lib­rar­ies, work­shops and classes pop­ping up through­out New Zea­l­and all owe some­thing to this sem­in­al Wel­ling­ton event.

Wel­ling­ton Zine­fest is sup­por­ted by Wel­ling­ton Cre­at­ive Com­munit­ies.

Wel­ling­ton Zine­fest 2012: Mighty Mighty (Cuba Street), Sat­urday Novem­ber 17, 1–5 PM