Kia orana, malo e lelei from the Pasifika Festival team,
Ole Maiava, the longest serving event producer for Pasifika Festival completed his 6th year of service in December and announced his retirement from the role to embark on a new venture. Ole, thank you for your inspiration and leadership, we wish you every success.

Stan Wolfgramm, best known for his work with Westfield Style Pasifika has recently joined the team to take up the event producer role for 2013.
Welcome aboard Stan - It's wonderful to have your guidance and support
Stan's connection with the event began in the nineties. Fashion Pasifika was a feature of the festival at that time.

œI was tasked with the role of delivering the event. Westfield Style Pasifika NZ Fashion Awards has become a significant annual event on the New Zealand fashion calendar since.

Today, Pasifika is so much bigger and brighter - An iconic event for Auckland, a cornerstone to our cultural identity.
With less than six weeks to go, Stan is part of a brilliant team who have already spent considerable time developing new initiatives to enhance the festival experience.

This year's expanded two day event will include, more authentic and traditional Pasifika villages, bustling markets, song and dance, and for the first time a combined church service will be held on Sunday to bless the start of the day, with the voice of Pasifika choirs.

Bring the whole family because it's a day of festivity, food, kids, crafts, choirs, bands and the traditional Pasifika Sunday lunch with the people you love.

Finally, make sure you visit our new Pasifika 2013 website it's full of key information, event history and festival news.

Kia manuia

The Pasifika Festival team

Food, Arts and Craft

Thank you to those that have expressed interest in holding a stall at Pasifika Festival 2013.

We are currently allocating stalls on the park for Saturday 9 and Sunday 10 March which has been a massive undertaking.
Just a reminder - the deadline for all stallholder payments was last Friday, 25 January. If you have not made payment yet, your stall site maybe offered to someone on our waiting list
If you have any question regarding your payment or application please email Iris atpasifika@aucklandnz.com
Pasifika Festival pre-stallholder meetings will be held next week at the Fickling Convention Centre Hillsborough room at 6pm.
The following villages and section briefings will be held on:
Monday 4 February- Blue Section Fiji Village, Tahiti Village, Blue Pan Pacific areas
Tuesday 5 February- Red Section Tokelau, Cook Islands, Niue, Kiribati, Red Pan Pacific areas
Thursday 7 February- Green Section Tonga, Tuvalu, Samoa, Green Pan Pacific areas
Tuesday 12 February - Yellow Section Aotearoa Village, Yellow Pan Pacific areas
Wednesday 13 February- Yellow Section Aotearoa Village, Yellow Pan Pacific areas
Please note - Tip Top and Frucor (Pepsi Max and Mountain Dew) will be providing wholesale rates to Pasifika Festival vendors.The offers will be explained at the pre-festival stallholder meeting.

Music and Dance

Thank you to everyone who participated in the auditions that were held in December.

It was great to catch a glimpse of the fresh talent in Auckland.
Successful emerging artists will perform at Pasifika Festival, Saturday 9 March on the Prosperity stage, including Rizvan andVallkyrie (both pictured).

Make sure you check them out!

On Sunday 10 March, the Prosperity stage will hold aPasifika Festivalchurch service from 9am to10am followed by cultural performances throughout the day.

There will also be a Pan Pacific stage that will feature music, dance performances of all ethnicities.

For more information, refer to the website, aucklandnz.com/pasifika
or email us atpasifika@aucklandnz.com.

Villages

From the Village Coordinators - Tena koutou katoa. Talofa lava. Ia Orana. Kia Orana. Fakaalofa lahi atu. Kam na Mauri. Taloha ni. Ni sa bula vinaka. Talofa koutou. Malo e lelei.

We are grateful for the assistance of the Lion Foundation and Nautilus Foundation for their financial assistance to support the villages.

Programme preparations are well underway for each village We are grateful for the support of our Village Coordinators who are responsible for compiling, scheduling performers, weavers, artists, tattooists, and carvers of their respective stages, fale's and activity marquees.

A large Tongan contingent, of forty people, will be travelling to Pasifika Festival to perform along with many other performers and stallholders. Some of these artists will travel from their home nations of Fiji, Samoa, Cook Islands, Tahiti and our Pasifika brothers and sisters living in Australia.

A key objective of Pasifika is to produce an event that strongly reflects a truly authentic look and feel of the Pacific islands. Ensuring that the cultural, spiritual and social objectives are applied. So come and join us for the first ever combined church service on Sunday at Western Springs between 9am 10am.

A snapshot of activities that will take place in the villages in addition to performances on stages:
• Aotearoa Traditional cooking and ta moko (tattooing)
• Niue - Traditional weaving and cooking
• TahitiTattooing Tahiti style
• Tokelau- Traditional weaving
• Tonga Traditional weavers from Tonga and brass bands made world famous during Rugby World Cup (RWC 2011)
• Tuvalu Fatele - traditional dancing costumes
• Kiribati- Making traditional decorations, and weaving (harakeke)
• Samoa- Traditional weaving and carving
• Fiji- Traditional stone carving
• Cook Islands- Traditional costume making and performances
For more information, visit aucklandnz.com/pasifika or join our Facebook page for regular updates.

Commercial Partnerships

To the big announcements we'd like to welcome the following companies to the Pasifika Festival family: Pepsi, 2degrees, Mai FM and Fairfax Suburban Newspapers, part of the Mighty A Network.

We are also incredibly grateful for the continuing support of long-term partners Tip Top, Pacific Media Network and AUT University
.
Important stallholder news - If you didn't manage to read December's stallholders newsletter, Tip Top and Frucor (Pepsi Max and Mountain Dew) are providing wholesale rates to Pasifika Festival vendors. These companies are the exclusive providers to Pasifika Festival 2013 for all ice-cream and beverages. If you are selling any of these products, make sure you're at the compulsory pre-festival stallholder meetings commencing next Monday 4 February. Make sure you attend to find out more about product range available to sell, payment and delivery options, order requirements and general house-keeping rules.

Finally, thanks to long-term partner Smokefree, 2013 will mark the first year Pasifika Festival is completely smokefree.

We thank them for their continued support.

ENDS

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