Golden Bay Summer Arts Festival
Wednesday 18th - Sunday 22nd February 2026
A Summer Festival which captures the essence of the Golden Bay/Mohua Creative Community. The festival consists of a number of individual events offered by local creatives and located at various venues around the region for you to enjoy.
Vision and Values
To empower the development of sustainable community-led practices, productions and events within the framework of a seasonal festival promoting Golden Bay/Mohua as a destination to experience quality arts and Ngā Toi.
EMPOWERMENT - the festival acknowledges the depth of experience, expertise and creativity held within the Golden Bay/Mohua community and will provide structures, processes and support that nourishes the potential, integrity and qualitative expression of these skills.
SUSTAINABILITY - the festival acknowledges when the creatives who contribute to the festival are nourished the festival will thrive.
COMMUNITY LED - the structures and processes underpinning the festival will be kept to a minimum to allow the freedom for champions from the diverse artistic communities in Golden Bay/Mohua to take the lead in defining the activites that make up the festival - recognising these communities know best how to manifest their artform.
ACCESS and WELL BEING - the festival also acknowledges the potential of emerging artists and artforms needing structure and support to participate in the festival with confidence and efficacy.
DIVERSITY - the festival embraces all artforms and cultural expression of creativity recognising those creating on the edge of an artform and/or the act of creativity are pioneers in human expression.
Golden Bay Summer Arts Festival Registration
Golden Bay Community Arts Council with support from the Ministry of Culture and Heritage are super excited to announce a Summer Arts Festival in the Bay in February 2025. The heart of the festival will be from Wednesday 18th February to Sunday 22nd February however our vision is for workshops and events happening a few days either side of these dates to be included in the schedule.
What makes this festival special is its focus on being community led. In essence the festival provides a light structure to support our communities creatives and creativity to express itself. We are not looking at organising something that requires a small number of individuals to put in a lot of effort rather our vision is that individuals and arts communities think about something they can make happen at that time of year. This way the festival will be a collection of events giving the feel of something significant!
Gary Smith the festival coordinator, will be available to provide support and the festival
itself will provide comprehensive marketing and ticketing services taking care of another
significant aspect of event organising.
What we need is keen folk to champion their ideas! To register choose from one of the following:
In essence this festival is about collectively celebrating the depth of creative talent and energy here in the Bay. The festival itself is committed to working in partnership with the diversity of art forms, creativity and cultures with a connection to our region. We have an eye on the event being held annually and operating as a mechanism for extending our regions summer visitors season.
We imagine events could be held in the remote regional halls around Golden Bay/Mohua, so it’s an opportunity for creatives of all types to present their work in the small communities in which they live!
Register Event if you have a clear idea of what you want to do.
Register Skills if you have skills you feel are useful to the festival
Register Resources if you have resources you feel are useful to the festival
Volunteer because the festival sounds cool and you just want to be involved!
How The Festival Works
The festival is managed by a festival coordinator.
Creatives as individuals or champions of an arts community, register as following:
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Register Event - you have a clear idea of what you want to do and are ready to enter discussions with the festival co-ordinator.
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Register Skills and/or Resources - you are keen to be involved and have skills and/or resources you feel are useful and would like to connect with the festival coordinator to explore supporting an existing event or collaborating with others to form an event.
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Volunteer - you just want to be involved because the event sounds cool!
Creatives (and their community) build a partnership with the festival where they have the freedom to define what, how and where their art form is presented. The only criteria we have is that offerings have integrity.
The festival will provide the following:
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Support developing a comprehensive production plan (including a budget) for individual events.
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Support obtaining funding, sponsorship and exploring ways to generate a financial return from an event.
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Ticket selling services.
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An overview of the festival as a whole including looking for opportunities to network and collaborate across diverse arts sectors.
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Technical support (including recognising where resources can be shared).
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Where possible the support needed for creatives to develop skills and capacity, with a clear eye on empowerment and sustainability.
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Support developing marketing material for individual events.
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Development of comprehensive marketing material and strategies for the festival as a whole.
Foundations of Partnership:
All partnerships between creatives (and creative communities) and representatives of the festival will be based on:
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Open disclosure of intention.
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Open and timely sharing of information.
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Commitment to learning and supporting each other to learn the intricacies of building quality, authentic and sustainable relationships that have a foundation in cultural safety, respect for diversity and practitioner knowledge, recognising the value of meaningful connection.
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Recognition of the value of trust, honesty and integrity.
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A clear procedure for conflict resolution.
Financials:
All events will be required to develop a comprehensive budget.
The festival will receive 15 - 25% of all revenue (with the exception of funding and/or sponsorship) associated with that event as a recognition of the festival's support, organisation and marketing services.
This return needs to be factored as a cost in the development of your events budget.
The financial viability of an event will be openly discussed and contingency plans developed collaboratively by both the festival and event coordinators.
GBCAC reserve the right to make the final decision on all financial matters associated with all events and the festival.
Beyond returns to the festival the producer of an event will have full autonomy to determine how profits are distributed. The festival will advocate for a percentage of profits to be reinvested into you (or your community's) ability to have a presence at the next Summer Arts Festival. The festival is able to hold and earmark finances for your community to use in this way.
All finances will be managed by the festival and the GBCAC for auditing purposes.