Music Industry News

The New Zealand Fringe Festival returns in 2025 for a milestone event — the celebration of its 35th year! On Thursday 12 December, the festival launches the monumental full programme for its upcoming season.

Since its humble beginnings in 1990, the NZ Fringe Festival has grown into an incubator for talent — granting creative space and freedom for both emerging and established artists to showcase their work; providing international artists a uniquely Aotearoa Fringe Festival experience; and contributing to the arts scene by giving new and veteran audiences alike a chance to witness The Birthplace of Brilliance.

From 14 February – 8 March 2025, NZ Fringe Festival events will be taking over the Greater Wellington region. In the three-week season, 170+ events will be open to the public, ranging from whānau-friendly showcases, interactive outdoor spectacles, racy burlesque shows, moving theatre and dance pieces, chortle-inducing comedy shows, and so much more. Take your pick from the extensive range of genres, styles, ticket prices, free events, and venues! There’s plenty to go around. Tickets will be available on Thursday evening for the 2025 season on the NZ Fringe website

Vanessa Stacey, Director of the NZ Fringe Festival, says, “For 35 years, New Zealand Fringe has been a hotbed of innovation, creation, and emerging talent. Giving birth to many of our most notable artists both in Aotearoa and around the world. We are so excited to share our 35th-anniversary edition of the largest open-access, multi-disciplinary arts festival in New Zealand for your entertainment — and so you can say, you saw it here first, at the Birthplace of Brilliance!”

This year, NZ Fringe 2025 sees some huge names, some returning to the festival, and others gracing its stages for the first time.

Nicola Brown, winner of the Dunedin Tour Ready Award, joins the festival in Pōneke thanks to support from the NZ Fringe Touring Fund. Brown’s solo show, the comically innovative Space Invaders, has earned her numerous awards, including Auckland Fringe Festival 2024 – Outstanding Comedy Award, Auckland Fringe TAHI Festival 2024 – Outstanding Solo Performance Award, and Dunedin Fringe Festival 2024 – Auckland Fringe Tour-Ready Award.

From Australia, Gendermess Productions brings their award-loaded Cabaret/“Drag-u-mentary” Messy Friends. This show has sold out at Adelaide World Fringe and Edinburgh Fringe in 2023 and 2024. Messy Friends won Adelaide Fringe 2024 Best Cabaret, and Weekly Best Cabaret awards, along with several other accolades.

LJ Crichton, winner of Creative New Zealand’s Most Promising Pasifika Artist Award at NZ Fringe 2024, returns with his personal exploration piece Master of None: Brown Fala. This live performance of Crichton’s debut album offers an authentic look into Samoan identity through original music, movement, and storytelling.

Tom Knowles, a beloved Wellington musician, will present an inventive piece titled CAR-A-OKE!, offering a late-night mobile karaoke party in a van for a koha entry fee.

Coming to Aotearoa from Hong Kong is Huen Sze Man Suzanne of Taiwan with her show Dance with Dementia, which poignantly explores her mother’s depression and dementia diagnoses through theatre.

Young and Wise Theatre Co. from the United States will present THE KIDS MIGHT DIE (a tale told by an idiot), a re-imagined Macbeth that has already won the San Diego Tour Ready Award.

In addition to the exciting mix of international talent, the 2025 NZ Fringe Festival will feature some incredible local musicians:

Deva Mahal, acclaimed Indie and R&B artist, will close the festival with a night of masterful songwriting and breathtaking vocal talent at the Hannah Playhouse.

Louisa Williamson, composer and saxophonist, will present her adapted composition The Chasm Where We Fall Into Each Other, drawing on her national and international performance experience.

Other notable names appearing at NZ Fringe 2025 include:

Duncan Greive, founder of The Spinoff, with The Spinoff Live: The Fold, a live-recorded podcast panel show at Hannah Playhouse.

Maria Williams, Best Newcomer at the NZ International Comedy Festival 2019 (WLG) & 2021 (AKL), with Anxiety… The Musical!?

Iris Little, 2024 APRA Silver Scrolls performer, with their album release show Iris Little – The Nature Project.

Hugo Grrrl, House of Drag season one winner, with Hugo’s Rainbow Show, a whānau-friendly event.

Sachie Mikawa, composer, sound designer, and award-winning theatre maker, with Egg.

NZ Fringe events will be hosted at over 40 performance spaces across the Greater Wellington Region in 2025. Events will return to some of the top theatre venues in Pōneke, including the Hannah Playhouse, BATS Theatre, Te Auaha, Circa Theatre, The Gryphon Theatre (FATG), and the Fringe Bar. The festival will also take over innovative locales for whānau-friendly events, such as Zealandia, Innermost Gardens, the Wellington Waterfront, and Campbell Park, Paekākāriki.

Backed by its small, but passionately dedicated team, NZ Fringe could not be the festival that it is today without the mahi from the artists involved, as well as the key festival partners: Wellington City Council, Creative New Zealand, Inject Design, NZME/The Hits, The Lion Foundation, and Resene.

The New Zealand Fringe Festival’s 35th year programme will be live on their website this evening (12 December) and via printed copies available throughout Pōneke. The festival opens 14 February and runs until 8 March across Wellington venues. See the myriad of remarkable shows on offer at the Birthplace of Brilliance by booking your tickets now at tickets.fringe.co.nz.

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