Free & Live

Come and enjoy dinner and a show at the Grassroots Trust Festival Hub every night from 5pm!

Located in the Central Court of the Hamilton Gardens, the Festival Hub is the place to soak up the festival vibes, enjoy amazing kai and free music, and mingle with friends and whānau. This weekend will have kai available from food trucks Copper and Cream, Mizzoni Pizza, Kai on Wheels and Loco Mexicano!

We’ll also have roving performances from drag queen Piper Blaster (Saturday 2 March, 6-8pm) and circus and puppetry from Naranjarte company (Saturday 2 March).

Please note that HAFTOKK events are strictly no BYO alcohol.

WEEK 1: Grassroots Trust Festival Hub Stage Timetable

	Fri 23	Sat 24	Sun 25
5PM	DJ Adl Fresh Tunes	Charles N Charge Rap Artist With Dj	Summer Shakespeare The Merry Wives Of Windsor
6PM	Piper Blaster Drag Performer Queen	Hamilton Big Band Big Band
7PM	Darz Music Acoustic Guitar Loop		Rowdy’s Rose Musical Duo
8PM	Dusk Til Dawn Acoustic Guitar Duo		Kyla Greening Acoustic Soloist

WEEK 2: Grassroots Trust Festival Hub Stage Timetable

	Wed 28	Thu 29	Fri 1	Sat 2	Sun 3
5PM	Jaqui Taimana Solo Variety Performer	Jaqui Taimana Solo Variety Performer	5.00PM DJ Manny Cullingford Fresh beats  6.30PM This Is Kiwi Pasifika Evening 7.30PM DARZ Music and friends	Summer Shakespeare The Merry Wives Of Windsor	5AM Summer Shakespeare The Merry Wives Of Windsor
6PM	Ham Operatic Society Emerging Artists	Soulti Vox & Tracks
7PM	Qalina Solo Sax and piano variety	Elisabeth Denis Spoken Word		Soulti Vox & Tracks	Ra Keelan Acoustic Guitar Loop
8PM	Jasmine Rose Acoustic Guitar Duo	Ruth Power Solo Electric Piano		Brass Attacks Quartet Brass Band

We believe the magic of the arts should be accessible to everybody. That’s why we present more free and live events than any other regional arts festival in New Zealand.

The Hamilton Arts Festival is a uniquely community-driven arts festival. Every year our festival relies on the generosity and time of local businesses, sponsors, venues and volunteers to go ahead.

Here are some fun facts about what makes us tick:

Our commitment to making ticketed shows affordable to as many people as possible means that for every $1 you spend on a ticket, we subsidise a further $2. Thanks to our amazing sponsors, the cost to the public for each ticketed show is subsidised by 70%.

1400 volunteer hours were involved in delivering our 2021 festival. We couldn’t be more grateful for the hard work volunteers put in every year to make our festival what it is!

Faced with a myriad of challenges brought on by the Covid-19 pandemic, we launched a crowdfunding campaign to help the festival go ahead in 2022. With the generous support of our community, we managed to raise $25,000 (115% of our original funding target!).

In 2021 over 45,000 people attended a free & live event at our festival.

Check out our always-evolving programme of free and live events at the Hamilton Gardens and around the CBD!