Date: March 26, 2025

From all at THE Festival – thank you!

You showed up. You leaned in. You experienced something bold, beautiful, and new and we hope you loved it! Your support brings the arts to life in Tāmaki Makaurau.

Thanks to you, artists shared their work, communities connected, and the city pulsed with creativity. We’re so grateful you were part of it.

We’ll be sharing highlights from this year’s Festival soon – but first, we’d love to hear what you thought. Take a minute to share your feedback below.

Date: February 25, 2025

Black Grace – This Is Not A Retrospective

What better way to close out the Festival than with a party! In 2025, Black Grace hits 30 years, and together with Auckland Live, we’ve handed over the keys to the Great Hall to celebrate. Put on your best party outfit and dancing shoes, as you will be given a rare opportunity to be in the action, a space where artists and audiences connect. This Is Not A Retrospective is the ultimate interactive dance party, with the help of some of Black Grace’s most awesome friends from the past three decades. Mark our words — this will be a night to remember.

Date: February 7, 2025

Belle – A Performance of Air. Movement of the Human (MOTH)

A defining experience of the Festival, this monumental collision of theatre and aerial transforms the Kiri Te Kanawa Theatre into another world. An all-female cast exhibits spectacular strength and skill, emerging and vanishing from portals of light and shadow, all enveloped in a gorgeous soundscape. It’s simply breathtaking. With captivating design and composition from the creative force of Malia Johnston, Rowan Pierce and Eden Mullholand, in collaboration with Jenny Ritchie, Belle is a visual and atmospheric wonder that left us speechless — and we haven’t stopped talking about it since. It’s a performance of air and so, so much more.

Date: February 4, 2025

The majestic power of gospel.

The spine-tingling anthems behind Nelson Mandela and Martin Luther King’s legacies. Swelling with pride, love and the fight for racial equality, this all-new concert from Soweto Gospel Choir is a rare chance to witness one of live music’s greatest wonders. We were so close to seeing the triple Grammy-winning choir at the Festival in 2020 and can’t wait for the historic sound of South African freedom songs and African American civil rights music — including protest songs by James Brown, Sam Cooke, Stevie Wonder and Aretha Franklin — to raise the roof of the Auckland Town Hall.

Date: February 4, 2025

Unparalleled effervescence and vitality

With a musical style inspired by her New Orleans Creole heritage, Ngāti Tūwharetoa whakapapa, African American, and Native American roots, Maya Piata will delight audiences with her unparalleled effervescence and vitality. For the Festival, she performs a mixture of original and well-loved songs in Aotearoa for the first time. Growing up in “The Big Easy” amidst a vibrant live music culture has impacted her career thus far and we can’t wait to share that energy and dynamism with Tāmaki Makaurau.

Date: February 4, 2025

Native American jazz with a story

Jazz that tells the story of Diné culture is the jam of this wonderfully innovative group. Led by Delbert Anderson, a Navajo (Diné) trumpet master whose playing style channels the spirit of Miles Davis (who was of Cherokee ancestry), Delbert Anderson Quartet infuses traditional Diné ‘spinning songs’ with jazz improvisation, funk lines, hip-hop notes and soulful Latin grooves. Having one of the pillars of the Native American jazz scene visit Aotearoa is a privilege for the Festival’s Indigenous Music Series, and we extend a warm welcome to the Quartet and its musical heritage drawn from Northwest New Mexico, the landscape and surrounding Indigenous tribes.

Date: February 4, 2025

Te reo Māori opera

Operatic arias, te reo Māori and sublime vocal prowess blend together in this concert of treasured and popular waiata. Prepare to be entranced and transported to another realm. Prime your vocal for a sing-along like no other. Toiere will take you on a musical journey to be remembered for years to come.

Date: February 4, 2025

Scottish Folk Rockstars.

Let us introduce you to a folk band about to take over the world. Scotland’s Talisk are one of the best live acts in the UK and on the festival circuit right now, producing raucous crowd energy and stadium-sized sound with a mere concertina, fiddle and guitar. It’s just Mohsen Amini, Benedict Morris and Charlie Galloway on stage with three acoustic instruments — and yet it’s their indescribable ability to concoct the most addictive, trance-like explosion of folk that has propelled them to cult status. Whether traditional music gets your blood flowing or you’re a headbanger at heart, this gig is for you.

Date: February 4, 2025

“Greatest Trio on Earth.”

The Necks, put simply, are one of the cult bands. The New York Times calls them the “Greatest Trio on Earth.” Described as not quite avant-garde, minimalist, ambient or jazz, they’re really a genre unto themselves — proudly their own thing in a world of trendsetting and attention seeking, which is a huge part of their enduring charm. If you know The Necks, you just know. But if you’ve never heard their music, prepare for obsession. Touring to promote their new album Bleed, the Sydney-based group last played here in 2008, making this long-awaited return to Aotearoa a big deal for fans and the Festival alike.

Date: February 4, 2025

Silky smooth Pacific soul

Pacific funk comes to the Spiegeltent courtesy of Island Vibes, a silky smooth, summer-nights band immersed deep in the soul of the Pacific. Mixing stories, traditions and sounds to produce catchy live music that dives into the heart of Pacific cultures, this nine-member collective is led by artists who live and breathe their island roots right here in Tāmaki Makaurau. Performing both groove classics and raw original songs, Island Vibes channel the beauty and unstoppable spirit of le Moana-nui-a-kiwa on stage — and we can’t think of a better way to cap off your Friday night than with these guaranteed good vibes.

Date: February 4, 2025

Honouring Irish music icons

In memory of her dear departed friends, Sinead O’Connor and The Pogues’ Shane MacGowan, and other legends that inspire, fan favourite Camille O’Sullivan returns to the Festival with this radiant new concert. Camille’s reputation for stunning live shows and thrilling interpretations of great music is immense around the world, and here she’ll sing from the heart and soul — and in the spirit of St. Patrick’s Day — to honour her fellow Irish music icons, along with songs by the late Leonard Cohen, David Bowie and more. Loveletter also marks Camille’s first Auckland Town Hall performance, a venue of breathtaking acoustics tailormade for her most dramatic song renditions.

Date: February 3, 2025

Hey Dowling. Hosted by Victoria Falconer

Thirsty for a fabulous night out? Let the hottest cabaret troupe out of Australia take care of that for you. For our most intoxicating Spiegeltent season yet, we’re pinching ourselves that we’ve lured the queen of late-night variety, Victoria Falconer — award-winning performer, musician, MC and one of the most in-demand artists on the scene — across the ditch for a late summer of fast-and-frisky, saucy-as-hell, anything-goes circus-style cabaret. She’s joined by her specially curated dream team of drag, burlesque, aerial and acrobatic stars, including some handpicked guests from our own backyard and a rock ‘n’ roll live band to help you tear up the night!

Date: January 26, 2025

A Powerful Story of Deaf Identity and Family Connections

Jodee Mundy Collaborations & Quiet RIOT · Written and performed by Jodee Mundy OAM
What’s it like to live in a Deaf family, where using sign language is natural, in a society that sees only your family’s disability with voyeuristic curiosity? One of the most poignant, engaging and perceptively funny theatre pieces we’ve discovered in a while, Personal is artist Jodee Mundy’s story of being CODA (child of Deaf adults). Her experience as the only hearing person in a Deaf family — something she first realised when she was lost in a Kmart as a five-year-old — is cleverly portrayed through performance, storytelling, multimedia and animation, all with a lightness of touch that’s truly captivating.

Date: January 18, 2025

Following an enthusiastic response to previous announcements of A Streetcar Named Desire and SIX The Musical, the 2025 Te Ahurei Toi o Tāmaki Auckland Arts Festival programme has been revealed today.

“The 2025 Festival is all about inviting audiences to be curious, have fun, and fall in love with Tāmaki Makaurau through the arts,” says Bernie Haldane, Kaitohu Toi · Artistic Director of Te Ahurei Toi o Tāmaki Auckland Arts Festival. “This year’s programme is bursting with vibrant experiences that will inspire and celebrate the heart and soul of our city. Whether you are discovering a new artist, dancing in the last of the summer sun, or joining in the good vibes of Festival Garden, there’s something for everyone to enjoy, and we hope you will be left seeing our city in a new light.”