NEWS RELEASE
21 December 2010

Hark! The herald buskers sing

Look out for people in brightly coloured t-shirts over the next few days around the city centre – they’ll be dishing out NZCT Summer City festival brochures that are full of fun, free events to get into between now and April.

Kicking off as usual on New Year’s Eve, the City Council’s Community Events Manager Rebecca Hardie, says there’ll be a different approach taken for this year’s celebrations.

“We’re going to move away from the concert format that we usually hold in Civic Square to a more chilled-out event.

“There’ll be buskers dotted along the waterfront, and they will rotate around three different points – at Te Papa forecourt, the pyramid at the City to Sea bridge and by the lagoon. We also hope to have fire dancers and other kinds of performers too,” says Rebecca.

Families with young children will be glad to know there’ll be children’s entertainment from 8.30pm at the Te Papa forecourt and a countdown at 9pm.

“For older children and adults, there’ll be a countdown at the different sites around the waterfront area – our buskers will let everyone know when 2011 is nearly upon us,” says Rebecca. “You can also keep an eye on Te Papa and the Michael Fowler Centre – there’ll be large clocks projected onto both buildings.”

All artists will stop performing by 12.15am.

But that’s only the beginning – Wellingtonians will be happy to know perennial favourites like the ASB Gardens Magic series, Films by Starlight, the Teddy Bears’ Picnic, Positively Pasifika festival and the Chinese New Year celebrations return to keep thousands of people entertained.

New events include the world-famous VELUX 5 Oceans yacht race – where competitors are due to start arriving here from 6 January. The 2nd Asia Pacific Outgames, whose programme was launched last week, and the ITF Taekwon-Do Championships both happen in March.

For information on all the great events coming up over the summer, keep an eye out for Summer City brochures in stands around town and also at Council libraries, swimming pools and recreation centres. People can also access the full programme at Wellington.govt.nz

ENDS

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