60 Festivals in 61 years!

What an amazing feat! How many have you attended? What are your highlights and favourite memories?

We’re planning to continue the tradition of writing up history of the festival every ten years, and we’d love to include your reminiscences. Janette Munneke will be out at the festival with a voice recorder – please think about some recollections you’d like to share and come and chat with her during the Festival, or you can email them to this address: wffmemories@gmail.com

To jog your memory, you can view many of the past programmes on the Wellyfest website at this link: https://wellingtonfolkfestival.org.nz/past-programmes/ (but beware, you might get lost for a while!). There will also be a slideshow and some poster boards at the Festival.

For more info about the history project, go to this page website: Gathering Wellyfest history | Wellington Folk Festival.

Tickets for the 2025 60th Anniversary edition of the Wellington Folk Festival are on sale at Humanitix. Early bird prices run until midnight 28 September, but if you buy yours before Sunday 21 September (extra early) you’ll go into the draw to win the cost of your ticket back.

Remember children aged 12 or under get in free.

Village Green stallholders also get two free registrations per stall – if you know anyone who might have a product to sell, please have them make an enquiry by email to alexanderdouglaswright@gmail.com with “Village Green” in the subject line.

For a full breakdown of ticket prices, please see the ticket page.

The stalls of the Village Green are one of the things that adds to the colour and vibe of the Festival, but one that has thinned out a little over recent years.  We are keen to try to build it up again. There are spaces available for folk to sell folk-related craft and produce.  

Last year Alexander Wright had a stall on the Village Green for the first time and enjoyed the experience so much he has put up his hand to coordinate the Village Green this year.

As in previous years there is no charge for having a stall and we have increased the number of free registrations per stall to two. 

If you are interested in having a stall at Wellyfest 2025, drop an email to alexanderdouglaswright@gmail.com with “Village Green” in the subject line.  And if you know people who may be interested please pass the word on. 

We are keen to try to spread the word about the Festival beyond established folky circles and to the wider “music interested“ community.  You may be able to help.

Posters – We have posters in search of homes, in bars, cafe’s, bookshops or wherever else they may do useful work .  We have the city centre pretty well covered but need help to get them out into the suburbs and the wider region.  If you know places in your local area where you think you could place some, drop a line to Don at secretarywff@gmail.com letting him know where you are and how many you would like and he will try to figure out how to get them to you.

Beer mats – We have also invented cool little beer mats with the “60 years young” logo on them. 

We have homed a bunch of these at the bars around the city where live music happens, but again have not reached far into the suburbs or the wider region.  If there are bars or cafes that host live music in your neighbourhood where you think they might be placed again drop a line to Don at secretarywff@gmail.com with the details.  Offer valid while stocks last.

But wait there’s more.  

Signage – We have resurected and are looking to repurpose some 80cm x 240cm coreflute hoardings, originally made for the 2018 Festival.  We would like to home these up in high visibility spots with high vehicle and/or pedestrian traffic.   If there are spots in your town where you think you can find a home for one, again drop a line to Don at secretarywff@gmail.com with the details (and if possible a snapshot).

The Festival relies on volunteer input to help the event run smoothly. If you’d like to get involved we have a number of volunteer roles available.

In particular we are in need of a duty electrician to be onsite or on call and able to arrive at short notice (either a Registered Electrician or someone with an Electrical Inspector’s ticket).

Other areas where there are likely to be roles to be filled are:

• First Aid – we need at least two people with level 2 first aid skills – preferably with ATP
• Housekeeping and hygiene – rubbish bin clearance and cleaning the loos and showers
• Site setup and breakdown – general furniture shifting, venue and site setup and experienced people with construction site experience to help with stage, sound and lighting rig setup. Training certificates for site safe and working at heights are highly desirable for a few people.

People willing to commit to being rostered in these roles during or before or after the Festival, may be offered a full weekend festival ticket.

There may also be roles to be filled in areas such as:

• Security and registration – checking and selling tickets, cash and EFTPOS handling, venue ticket checks; and
• Assisting the Youth Programme.
• People willing to commit to being rostered in these roles may be offered a discount on their festival ticket.

If you are available to assist, or if you’d like more information about any of these opportunities please drop a line to nigel.parry@gmail.com with “Volunteering” in the subject line.

You may have noticed the new ’60 Years Young’ logo we’ve designed to mark the 60th folk festival held in the Wellington region. You can now order from a range of T-shirt and hoody styles sizes and colours featuring the design from here.   Here’s an example:

Your chance to become a fashion leader in your neighbourhood, or just turn yourself into a walking and talking billboard for the Festival!