While festivals around the world have been either cancelled or scaled back, Electric Avenue in Ōtautahi Christchurch is doing the opposite.
The annual music and arts festival at Hagley Park will now be staged over two days next February, expanding from a one-day festival. They say it’s set to become the biggest party in Australasia.
The team behind Electric Avenue are also responsible for the Great Kiwi Beer Festival and the South Island Wine and Food Festival.
Organisers expect 60,000 entries over the two days of Friday 21st February and Saturday the 22nd February next year and the line-up, set to be announced next week, will include more than 60 artists including 20 international acts. It’s a bold move in a year where many festivals have slimmed down.
In 2024 the Hawke’s Bay Arts Festival was cancelled, Fashion Week NZ announced it’ll be every two years, Splore Festival will be taking a break in 2025 and the long-standing A&P show was on the brink of shutting down after 160 years.
Across the Tasman, Splendour in the Grass and the 2023 New Years Falls Festival were both cancelled due to low ticket sales. Meanwhile the Byron Bay Blues Festival - which attracts more than 100,000 people to Queensland every year - has announced 2025 will be its last year. In the US, Coachella reported the slowest ticket sales in a decade. It’s potentially a slow recovery from the pandemic combined with a cost of living crisis.
Electric Avenue festival director Callam Mitchell spoke to Culture 101’s Perlina Lau about taking risks in a post-Covid economy.
