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.