Eleven Days That Give Our City a Heartbeat
Let's be honest: presenting an annual 11-day Arts Festival is not for the faint hearted. Costs keep rising, and there's always pressure to do more with less. But Tauranga Arts Festival is committed to bringing our community a multidisciplinary event every year, one that offers diverse, high-quality arts experiences, expands minds, delights audiences, and reaches every corner of our increasingly diverse Tauranga Moana community over its 11 days.
Our city benefits from it. In 2025, more than 14,000 people came along to our events. Over 8,400 of those were to ticketed shows, with the rest turning out for free events. We're especially proud that over 1,000 rangatahi took part in performances and school workshops, made possible with the support of Taylor Brothers Transport.
The Festival had 12 sold-out events, and 39% of attendees were first-timers. More than 80 performers and technicians travelled to Tauranga to present over those 11 days and experience our manaakitanga, and over 29% of last year's audience came from outside Tauranga's borders. These are visitors who came for the Festival and spent right across the city.
A 2024 Massey University study measuring the value of live performance found that every dollar spent on live performance returns $3.20 in benefit to the wider community. We want to be part of returning that value here. What really motivates us is the joy and vibrancy that thousands of people bring into the city over those 11 days. It's a chance to show what Te Manawataki o Te Papa, the heartbeat of our city, can really do for all of us, and we're proud to help lead that by example.
Tauranga's civic buildings are amazing, but they're nothing without people in and around them. We need the precinct activated, and that's exactly where arts and culture thrive and lead.
How to Festival: Our Top 5 Guide from Festival Chair, Kathryn Lellman
Once the programme is out, the hardest part is often knowing where to start. So here's our festival 101, our top 5 tips for making the most of it.
1. Pick a big Baycourt show. Choose one of the bigger shows that will transport you for an hour and a half and have you enthralled in the performance. If you snapped up Macy Gray tickets, which sold out in 15 minutes, you're already sorted. Otherwise we’d recommend Tiri: Te Araroa Woman Far Walking or Machine de Cirque.
2. Bring the kids (or borrow some). Choose a show for children and family. No kids of your own? Find a good excuse to bring some along and enjoy watching their faces as much as the show itself.
3. Choose something that challenges you. Find a show that pushes you outside your comfort zone. That's part of what a festival is for. The Craigs Investment Partners Escape Readers and Writers Festival, held over the second Festival weekend, is a great place to start.
4. Go free. Grab the family, the neighbours, the grandparents, and enjoy one of the free events popping up throughout the Festival.
5. Double down on one night. Part of the joy of a festival is doing back-to-back shows in one evening. Most events are one performance only, and the schedule is designed so you can jump from one thing to the next: a drink beforehand, one night of babysitting, dinner after at one of downtown Tauranga's many hospitality venues. Remember, a live show is a one-off experience. No rewind, no pause, just that night, with the people around you.
Arts Matter
Tauranga Arts Festival's job is to anchor the arts in our city, presenting performances that bring joy, escapism, kōrero, imagination and magic into the hearts and minds of our community.
Arts matter. Our community matters. Together, we thrive.
