Nau mai, haere mai

ki te Ahurei Toi o Te Matau-a-Māui

Welcome to the Hawke’s Bay Arts Festival

Nearly 30,000 people experienced events across the 2023 Hawke’s Bay Arts Festival, making it one of the most attended Festivals in the event’s nine-year history.

 The 2023 Festival met its promise of being one to remember, with its stacked programme boasting locally and internationally acclaimed acts that delighted audiences across Te Matau-a-Māui throughout October.

 For this year only, standard tickets to most shows were on sale for $25 – half their usual cost. In addition, seven entirely free events were put on across the Festival, including headline act 360 ALLSTARS, which was enjoyed by almost 1,800 people across Hastings and Napier venues.

 In addition, over 5,000 school children throughout Hawke’s Bay, from Mohaka to Waipukurau, were able to experience free performances as part of the Festival in Schools programme.

  “The idea behind this year’s Festival was to bring people together in celebration of our beautiful community here in Hawke’s Bay. It was our goal to create as many opportunities as possible for people to be able to participate, and find joy and happiness in the arts, after what has been a particularly difficult time for our region,” says Festival Director Pitsch Leiser.

The wheels are already in motion for 2024's Festival, which will also mark our 10 year anniversary. It's going to be huge... and we can't wait to see you back again!

But for now, we just want to say THANK YOU to every single person who made this Festival the magical event we just experienced, including our guests, volunteers, sponsors, patrons and of course the wonderful artists who shared their talents with aroha.

And thank you Hawke's Bay for sharing tears, joy and laughter and trusting us to bring you a very special Festival. 

Until next time,
The Festival Team



The 2023 Hawke's Bay Arts Festival

Festival Stories

We’ll be sharing festival tips, the juice on different shows and artists, behind-the-scenes tales, video and audio content, along with coverage of the Festival as it happens in October.

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