The sell out crowd of over 22’000 people at 2015’s WOMAD festival will rejoice in the memories of the last 54 hours they experienced here in the stunning Brooklands Park and TSB Bowl of Brooklands in Taranaki. Visitors from near and far have been lucky enough to enjoy some of the best sounds, sights, tastes, smells and experiences from around the globe and Aotearoa.
As Cyclone Pam devastated our Pacific neighbours and closed in on New Zealand, Taranaki was fortunate to be graced with beautiful weather all weekend which those attending the festival were grateful for, none more so than the regular WOMAD campers of which there were a record number of 5000.
With over 300 artists representing 22 countries across 4 stages, this years stellar line up included headliners Sinead O’Connor, Rufus Wainwright, Richard Thompson, Youssou N’Dour and Orquesta Buena Vista Social Club. The highlights for many came with the discovery of the Malawi Mouse Boys, Flavia Coelho, The Gloaming and Luzmila Carpio. WOMAD is more than just music, and festival-goers happily ate, drank and shopped their way around the world over the weekend within the Kunming Garden and the Global Village. Te Paepae, the art installations, site performances and Kidzone continued to be crowd favourites.
WOMAD continue their commitment to ensure that the event is example of environmental and sustainable success and this years WOMAD got even greener with the introduction of Globelets (washable, reusable drinking cups) to great success stopping 50’000 beer cups going to landfill.
Zero Waste Managers Sam Gray and Kim Renshaw were thrilled with initial indications that WOMAD will be sending half the amount of waste to landfill this year. “We’ve had some absolutely outstanding volunteers this year and combined with the introduction of Globelets are pointing to a really successful year.”
And as the very last acts take the stages for 2015, we are very pleased to announce the 2016 WOMAD dates to be
March 18th – 20th, 2016. Keep your eyes on the website
womad.co.nz for early ticket deals, plus the introduction of Ezipay and start planning 2016’s visit to New Zealand’s only festival of World, Music, Arts and Dance.
There are currently no comments for this article. Please log in to add new comments.