Homegrown to bring thousands of music fans to Wellington’s waterfront

New Zealand’s best live musicians are set to take over Wellington’s waterfront for the Jim Beam Homegrown music festival this weekend.

An eclectic mix of more than 45 artists, including Sir Dave Dobbyn, Shapeshifter and Katchafire, will spread across five stages on Saturday .

The festival is expected to draw 24,000 people to celebrate the event’s 16th anniversary. The inaugural Homegrown brought in 13,000 attendees back in 2008.

With this year’s ticket sales, Homegrown has now ticked over $6 million directly paid to Kiwi artists over its history.

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Homegrown Events managing director Andrew Tuck said preparations for the festival were tracking well, despite unfavourable weather conditions.

“We’ve been fighting a bit of wind and rain over the last few days, but the boys are putting in the hard mahi and we’re getting it over the line.

“It looks like we’ll sell out today or tomorrow so that’s absolutely fantastic news, so we’re really excited about what’s coming on Saturday,” Tuck said.

After last year’s event was cancelled due to Covid restrictions, the event team were stoked to get the chance to put on a show for Wellington, he said.

“We look back at this time last year, and we were all sitting in our offices a little bit beaten and a bit down so to be able to be here and be in Wellington doing what we do is really exciting.”

By Saturday, the event will have taken 16 days to set up and there will be a further four days of pack down after the crowds had cleared.

The Wellington waterfront will remain open to the public during the event, but only ticketed customers will be able to access the Homegrown stages which are set up around Waitangi Park and Te Papa.

The skateboarding bowl in Waitangi Park will be closed from Friday morning until Sunday lunchtime. The Harbourside Market will move to the Reading car park area on Sunday and there’ll be a requirement for cyclists and scooter riders to either slow down or dismount in the area due to the high number of pedestrians. Flamingo and Beam scooters and ebikes will not operate on the waterfront during Homegrown.

Wellington City Council warned also concert goers that a liquor ban remained in place on the waterfront and neighbouring streets, with those found breaking the ban liable to be fined up to $250.

“Finish your drink before you leave the stage and do not bring your own alcohol down to the Wellington Waterfront,” a spokesperson said.

The council also urged people to use public transport of walk, ride, scoot or carpool the event.

As of 1pm on Wednesday 15 March, tickets for under 18s have sold out but just under 400 adult tickets still available.

The event set up includes:

• 192 truckloads of gear to unload and organise
• 4.5km of electrical cable
• 600 lights
• 230 speakers
• 5.4km of temporary fencing
• 390 toilets
• 340 tons of concrete weights