TV2 KidsFest set to warm up winter

Christchurch is gearing up for one of the biggest children’s festivals ever held in New Zealand with over 220 events and an expected 85,000 attendances. Last year around 75,000 kids and their caregivers witnessed over 190 events spread around Christchurch, Selwyn and Waimakariri during TV2 KidsFest. This despite one of the harshest winters in Canterbury in many a decade.

TV2 KidsFest provides winter school holiday fun from Saturday 4th to Friday 17th July for children aged 3 to 12 and embodies the buoyant spirit and endless curiosity of children. The wide range of events focus on Knowledge and Discovery; Arts, Crafts and Creativity; Sports, Games and Adventure and Plays, Shows and Young Performers.

The eagerly anticipated TV2 KidsFest brochure will be released through schools, service centres and libraries in Christchurch, Waimakariri and Selwyn on Thursday 21 May. Preferential bookings can be made from that date with the box offices open for TV2 KidsFest 2009 from June 20 for the July 4 start to the Festival. Queues of up to 800 people have been known to line the streets outside the Christchurch Town Hall ticket office in past years to get tickets for TV2 KidsFest events on box office opening day. This year the Ticketek box office at Isaac Theatre Royal in Gloucester Street will help relieve the pressure and Coolstuff will entertain along with friends.

Created in 1992 to provide winter school holiday fun for children aged up to 12, TV2 KidsFest, New Zealand’s big gest children’s festival has entertained over 600,000 in the past 17 years. It provides an oppor tunity for community groups, amateur and professional organisations plus related businesses to create and pro duce special events just for children.

The annual school holiday event is run by the Christchurch City Council on behalf of the KidsFest Charitable Trust, and in its eighteenth outing, great free events will keep the excitement level high and make the festival accessible to all families in these tough economic times.

Stellar favourites like Singapore Airlines StarFest, The Press Dogs Day Out and The Breeze Mix Mash Music Bash all attract crowds of up to 3000 for hours of free entertainment.
Entrants to Singapore Airlines StarFest will have four minutes of fame to impress the judges and audiences and make it through to the next round. The final, held at the Christchurch Town Hall’s James Hay Theatre, is a thrilling family outing with great talent on show.

The perennial Kids Market, celebrating its 20th year in 2009, officially launches TV2 KidsFest on Monday 6th July (see story below).