It’s almost that glo­ri­ous point in Wellington’s cal­en­dar when the New Zealand Fes­ti­val  (23 Feb­ru­ary — 18 March), the Per­for­mance Arcade (23–25 Feb, 1–4 March) the Pride Fes­ti­val (24 Feb­ru­ary — 10 March) and the NZ Fringe Fes­ti­val Welling­ton  (2–24 March) are all on at the same time. I love it for the excit­ing mix of per­for­mances and instal­la­tions we can see — local per­form­ers on the same stages as inter­na­tion­al ones, and new­com­ers mix­ing it up with estab­lished prac­ti­tion­ers.

The Per­for­mance Arcade opens tonight (sneaky!) at 6pm. Lap Strap by Stef­fi Weis­mann  starts at 7:30pm. (I’m so intrigued. A wear­able tool­belt of audio equip­ment? Excel­lent.) On Fri­day there are events from lunchtime and live music from 5:30pm. The festival’s ‘spe­cial archi­tec­tur­al arrange­ment of ship­ping con­tain­ers’ pro­vides an excit­ing space for exper­i­men­tal per­for­mance art and instal­la­tions. Many of these focus on con­tex­tu­al rela­tion­ships between the per­former, the audi­ence and the space.

The New Zealand Fes­ti­val opens this Fri­day night at 7pm with free, whā­nau-friend­ly Kupe a com­mu­ni­ty extrav­a­gan­za on the water­front. As waka sail into the har­bour near Tarana­ki Wharf a 1000 strong group will wel­come them with a haka that ref­er­ences the arrival of Kupe, and the two tani­wha of Welling­ton Har­bour. There’s also a massed choir per­form­ing music by War­ren Maxwell. (Many oth­er shows open on Fri­day night as well.) Kupe is the first in a series of events that make up A Waka Odyssey. Part two Kupe Land­ing  is in Petone on Sat­ur­day when waka hou­rua and waka taua will land allow­ing us to get up close and per­son­al with the waka and their crews. There’ll be live music, DJs, per­for­mances, and food stalls. Part three Kupe Dream­ing  fea­tures a col­lec­tion of events cel­e­brat­ing our place in the Pacif­ic.

Pride Fes­ti­val wel­comes us with Out in the Park at Wai­t­an­gi Park on Sat­ur­day 11am — 4pm. The queer fair cel­e­brates with free enter­tain­ment from drag queens and kings, singers, dancers, and come­di­ans! The fes­ti­val con­cludes with the Pride Parade on Sun­day 10 March. In between there are pan­els and work­shops and class­es and pub­lic talks and mass and shows. Some of the shows are also fea­tur­ing as part of the NZ Fringe Fes­ti­val Welling­ton.

This fes­ti­val  wel­comes all com­ers You can get a taste of a whole bunch of events with The Great Fringe Cabaret Show­case on 1 March. It promis­es a ‘night of organ­ised chaos’ which sounds like fun. There are twen­ty-two free events and many more for koha or low-ish cost tick­ets. (A quick note about koha shows: koha is a gift to the performer/s for the work they have put in to the show. It’s not a gold coin. It’s a bunch of gold coins. Give gen­er­ous­ly if you can.)

What are you look­ing for­ward to?