Outdoor events
Family-friendly festivals NZ: best events & fun
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Photo by Annie Spratt on Unsplash
New Zealand is blessed with a variety of fun family-friendly festivals. An epic excursion for the whole tribe, these celebrations don’t rest on booze-fuelled raves but instead blend arts, music and culture with PG performances, amusements and workshops.
So trade another standard weekend at home with an exciting family adventure your little ones will love! Promising awesome activities for all ages, kid-friendly festivals are the perfect opportunity to show your mini-me the wonders of art, thrills of live music and joy of living in the moment.
All you have to do is decide which event you can’t miss and then hire a convenient campervan or motorhome - because it’s not the full experience without some festival camping!
Many festivals provide onsite camping, and those that don’t are almost always guaranteed to have a quality camping ground or holiday park closeby. With a campervan that sleeps your entire crew, you can party by day and enjoy cosy snuggles by night. Combine this comfort with minimal setup, spacious storage and a handy kitchenette for quick snacks, and festival camping with kids has never been easier!
Below, we’ve put together a list of our favourite New Zealand festivals for attendees young and old, so that you can find the perfect event for your next family holiday!
As a holidaymaker, Camplify helps you find an RV that is perfect for you so you can experience the joys of caravanning - without having to own one yourself.
Interested? Learn more about Camplify here.
Auckland Lantern Festival
February 13th - 16th 2020
Light up those adorable little faces at the Auckland Lantern Festival. This annual conclusion to the city’s Chinese New Year festivities is kid-friendly fun at its most dazzling! You’ll be wandering around the Auckland Domain as hundreds of handmade lanterns set the paths aglow.
Dance to traditional music performances, check out Chinese art and sample some mouth-watering delicacies at the many food stalls. Just make sure that everyone has comfy shoes on, as it’s an evening on foot!
Designed with families in mind, this spectacle starts before the sun sets so that you can begin early and make it back to the campervan for bedtime. Speaking of, stay the night at Takapuna Beach Holiday Park for a peaceful waterfront oasis close to the city lights.
And one of the best parts of this festival? It costs zilch, zero, nix! Now, that’s a savvy family outing.
Queenstown Winter Festival
June 18th - 21st 2020
Queenstown is famed for its winter sports, adrenaline hits and breathtaking wilderness. Top it all off with tasty local food, the best live music and fantastic fireworks, and it’s no wonder that New Zealand’s adventure playground is home to one of the most popular family-friendly festivals in the world.
Perhaps the greatest winter celebration in the Southern hemisphere, the Queenstown Winter Festival provides 10 whole days of exciting entertainment. And we can bet our dinner that the kids’ favourite event will be its hysterical Dog Derby, where pups and their owners race down Cardrona’s slopes, slipping and sliding along the way!
When the day’s celebrations draw to a close, there’s no shortage of awesome camping spots in Queenstown. Our favourites include Queenstown Lakeview Holiday Park and Queenstown Holiday Park & Motels Creeksyde. If you’d prefer to freedom camp in your self-contained campervan or motorhome, check out this map to find out exactly where you can park!
Ticket Launch Date: TBA
Evolve Festival
January 24th - 26th 2020
Soak up the Nelson sunshine at Evolve Festival. As much a relaxing retreat as a family festival, the beauty of Evolve rests in its chilled out vibes and focus on all things happy and healthy. This smoke, alcohol and drug-free event is for families who prefer quality over quantity, creating an intimate and laidback community without the chaos of a large festival.
As well as a myriad of workshops and seminars ranging from shamanic healing to permaculture, you can while away the day with its meditation and music sessions. Meanwhile, its dedicated kid's zone offers arts and crafts, circus skill lessons, face painting and even yoga classes for tiny yogis. To make the most of your weekend, park up at the onsite camping ground.
An affordable family holiday, adult tickets only cost $35 a pop and kids under twelve go free. Camping passes are required for an extra fee, but it’s totally worth it!
Book Tickets
Biophilia Festival
March 6th - 8th 2020
Another brilliant Queenstown festival, Biophilia is a three-day celebration of art, music and wellness in the great outdoors. The theme for 2020 is ‘Birds of A Feather, Co-Create Together’, with over 100 workshops, sessions and artistic performances surrounded by some of Mother Nature’s finest work.
Biophilia welcomes little festival-goers, offering everything from laughter yoga and ‘ecstatic dance and bedtime tales’ to dreamcatcher making and a young seekers’ nature hunt. To add to its family-friendliness, this alcohol and drug-free event proclaims: “We get loose, without the hooch. We get high, on a natural supply.’’
The icing on the cake? A Moke Lake DOC campsite is included in each multi-day pass, making for a wonderful family adventure in one of our campervans or motorhomes.
Book Tickets
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WOMAD Festival
March 13th - 15th 2020
WOMAD Festival is great for all ages!
Photo by Senjuti Kundu on Unsplash
WOMAD is a festival for every generation! Created to celebrate music in all its forms, WOMAD unites visitors through its cultural wonders, rather than drugs and alcohol. This fascinating festival will keep the whole family entertained with art installations, worldly performances and interactive workshops.
The Kidzone offers everything from acrobatics for beginners and dance lessons to costume making and face painting. You’ll also find a rock-climbing wall and a children’s parade, which showcases your little Picasso’s creative masterpieces on the Sunday evening. As if this festival needed more child-friendly fun, the Brooklands Zoo houses farmyard animals, meerkats, monkeys, frogs, fish and native birds.
Oh, and there's a designated family zone in the onsite campground so that you can connect with like-minded campers who won’t keep your kids up at night!
Pasifika Festival
March 14th -15th 2020
What began as a low-key picnic day has transformed into a glorious gathering of Pacific Island cultures, their heritage, traditions and lifestyles. The largest festival of its kind, Pasifika Festival now features 11 diverse ‘villages’ to celebrate the Cook Islands, Fiji, Niue, Hawaii, Samoa, Tahiti, Tuvalu, Tonga, Tokelau, Solomon Islands and, of course, Aotearoa.
Held at Western Springs in the heart of Auckland, you can enjoy all sorts of musical acts, theatre performances, finger-licking food and fascinating workshops that will educate your little ones on the Pacific ways of life.
Admission to Pasifika festival is free for the entire family! And when your tots are all tuckered out, head back to Avondale Motor Park for a central yet affordable sleep under the stars.
Festival Of The Lights
December 14th 2019 - February 1st 2020
Watch on as the sky lights up at the Festival of Lights
Photo by Jingda Chen on Unsplash
Another free family event, the Festival of Lights welcomes over 100,000 visitors every summer! There’s no doubt that your children will adore this twinkling transformation of Pukekura Park - one of New Zealand's most beautiful botanical gardens - into a spectacle of rainbow radiance.
Bring your little ones along to the kid-friendly daytime attractions, and when night falls you can marvel at the dazzling light installations, enjoy international entertainment and catch a movie at the outdoor cinema. Once you’re able to drag them away from the gorgeous glow, set up camp at Belt Road Seaside Holiday Park and wake up to the waves.
Convergence
December 29rd 2019 - January 3rd 2020
This New Year’s festival takes place at Journey’s End Campground every December. A celebration welcoming people of all ages, this eco-friendly festival embodies eight core values: Community, Sustainability, Co-creation, Participation, Awareness, Self Responsibility, Healing and Personal Growth.
As you might have guessed, Convergence is slightly different to your usual family festival, with attendees collaborating to create the event together - you can contribute whatever you want to, from meal prep and musical performances to massages and workshops. In your free time, swim in the river, join a jamming session, create some arts and crafts or play in the special kids’ space.
So for a refreshing start to the year, park your campervan in one of two large grassy meadows and discover the magic of this unique child-friendly festival!
[Book Tickets](https://convergence.net.nz/registration/# ticketprices)
Splore Festival
February 21st - 23rd 2020
Only a short drive from Auckland, Splore is back and better than ever before! New Zealand’s most exciting dress-up party is held in stunning Tapapakanga Regional Park, offering swimming and camping together with an awesome line-up of music, art and theatre. So get creative with your costumes and enjoy everything from bicycle-powered cinemas to steam-punk time machines made from tin huts!
For free kid-friendly entertainment, head straight for Charlie's Rumpus Room. Here, your little can make giant bubbles, build LED lanterns, learn some circus skills and play a part in the interactive storytelling. When the sun sets, return to Splore’s tucked-away family camping area for a peaceful evening by the shore.
[Book Tickets](https://www.iticket.co.nz/events/2020/feb/splore-tickets?_ga=2.196895916.1886419687.1568251971-497980776.1568251971# /buy-tickets)
Auckland Arts Festival
March 11th - 29th 2020
Last but not least, Auckland Art Festival will get your kids seriously cultured. This fantastic event fills some of Auckland’s most vibrant venues with a first-class line-up of music, dance, circus and theatre from around the world. So set up camp at Ambury Regional Park, Avondale Motor Park or Takapuna Beach Holiday Park and explore the endless entertainment on offer!
Our favourite event announced so far? Take the whole family to Ballet Preljocaj’s enchanting take on Snow White. A mesmerising mix of fairy tale and haute couture, costumes by Jean Paul Gaultier make this incredible performance even more beautiful. Essentially, you can awe at the high fashion while your young ‘uns enjoy the classic Brothers Grimm adventure (as this rendition is a bit more grown-up than the Disney version, we recommend it for children aged 12 and up).
And when you think you’ve seen it all, finish off your Auckland Arts Festival experience with an entire day dedicated to free family-friendly fun!
No idea what to bring? Learn how to pack for a family road trip and what to pack for camping at a music festival to make sure you have all the essentials for a smooth holiday! And before you set off for the festivities, make sure to check out our guide to festival camping in a van****).
What is Camplify?
We are Australia’s largest and New Zealand's newest caravan hire and RV sharing community, helping connect thousands of holidaymakers with RV owners.
Essentially, we provide a unique sharing service where owners of caravans, camper trailers, motorhomes, and campervans list their RV for hire while not in use. As an owner, this enables you to earn over $10,000 each year instead of having your RV just sitting around while you’re not using it.
As a holidaymaker, Camplify helps you find an RV that is perfect for you so you can experience the joys of caravanning - without having to own one yourself.
Interested? Learn more about Camplify here.