Storm brewing for Te Anau’s Easter Tartan Festival
Organisers of the Te Anau Tartan Festival have today confirmed the popular event will continue to be held biennially in the future, but invite people to come and dance the night away this year at a one-night-only, tartan-tangled, social celebration on April 1st.
The band Highland Storm will headline the night, bringing its eclectic repertoire of Scottish, Kiwi and pop music to stir the Scottish blood.
Unlike the seated concerts held as part of the Tartan Festival in the past, this year’s will feature casual, cocktail-style seating and a dance floor for people to mix and mingle and enjoy the music, with refreshments available throughout the night.
The show will bring a modern and Kiwi twist to a traditional Scottish Ceilidh. Ceilidh descends from the Gaelic word for a gathering or party and is synonymous with a fun-filled night of great music, dancing and company.
In another slight departure to previous years is the date. The Tartan Festival traditionally runs over Easter weekend, with the main highland games events on the Saturday. The Highland Storm soiree will be held on Easter Monday, 1st April, enabling people to enjoy other Easter events around the province and finish in Te Anau, with the Southland Anniversary Day holiday being marked by most the following day.
The Te Anau Tartan Festival was the brainchild of a group of Fiordland locals of Scottish descent, working under the umbrella of the Te Anau Community Events Charitable Trust, who wanted to develop an affordable, family-based, community festival celebrating our cultural heritage through a unique mix of sports and arts that welcomed widespread participation and enjoyment.
Introduced by Scottish settlers, Caledonian or Highland Games have been taking place in New Zealand since the 1860s but – despite its strong Scottish heritage – none survived in Southland. The establishment of the Te Anau Tartan Festival in 2013 changed that.
The festival has now become one of the major events in Fiordland and is well established on the piping and highland dancing competition circuit, with entrants this year coming from as far afield as Christchurch, as well as Otago and Southland.
The decision, therefore, to only hold the festival every second year from now on was not one taken lightly, convener Kirsty Pickett said.
“The festival is an enormous undertaking for a small committee every year. We also realised that with Covid disruptions, and prior to that the clash with the Ed Sheeran concert in Dunedin, we have actually only been running the festival biennially since so it made sense to continue that frequency.
“But after hosting the Highland Dance Company of New Zealand and the introduction of the highland heavyweight invitational last year, there was an appetite to offer something again this year but on a smaller scale so we opted for reprising the indoor entertainment part of the festival, but with a more lively and interactive vibe,” she said.
Highland Storm, featuring lead vocalists Simon Green and Hollie Longman, was formed in 2022 to deliver high energy “Bagrock” to festivals, conferences and parties. Several of its members will be familiar to Te Anau Tartan Festival audiences, having performed previously to sold-out shows as members of the band Pipeworkz, which performed at the festival in 2017 and 2019. Last year Highland Storm performed to high acclaim at the Arrowtown Autumn Festival and Alexandra Blossom Festival.
Anyone contemplating a visit to Fiordland is encouraged to save the date to experience the Highland Storm at the Real NZ Fiordland Community Event Centre on 1st April. Tickets are now on sale at https://www.teanautartanfestival.co.nz/tickets#TICKETS
“The festival has always been really well supported by locals and visitors alike and we hope that support continues for this unique and exciting event and gives yet another reason for people to visit and stay in this great wee part of the world,” Pickett said.
