New Zealand’s Return To Live Music Builds Momentum

New Zealand’s return to concerts and festivals that began in June has seen the southern spring and summer schedule fill up quickly – and travel between Australia and New Zealand could resume by September. There is normally a constant flow of artists between the two countries and many Aussie names headline NZ festivals.

Flume was announced on July 6 to top the bill for Bay Dreams in January before 25,000, which includes fellow-Aussies Peking Duk, Pendulum, and vocalist-producer George Maple.

NZ reggae band L.A.B. is scheduled to tour Australia in November. L.A.B. played NZ’s first post-pandemic show, drawing a full-capacity 6,000 to Spark Arena in Auckland. The show, originally for the 1,530 seat Auckland Town Hall sold out in hours.

Mikee Tucker of promoter Loop told the NZ Herald it was the first arena show in the world “for many, many, weeks .In addition to breathing air back into the lungs of the live entertainment industry it was awesome to see 6000 happy, smiling faces.”

Aside from numerous major sports and cultural events, music shows just added in Auckland include Tami Neilson at the Civic (Sept. 5), Dave Dobbyn at Spark Arena (Sept.12), beats and eats festival Elemental AKL (30 events from Oct. 1-31), Mary Poppins Oct. 2-17 at the Civic, Shapeshifter at Auckland Town Hall (October 16), Benee at Spark Arena (October 16-17), the Hella Mega Tour with  Green Day, Fall Out Boy and Weezer at Mt Smart Stadium (Nov. 22),  SPLORE festival (Feb. 20-23) and Pasifika Festival at Western Springs (March 6-7).