What is MarchFest?

Set in the beautiful, traffic-free environment of Founders Heritage Park, the next MarchFest takes place on Saturday March 24th 2012, noon to nine. Festival facilities and marketing efforts are geared to an expected attendance of at least 2,000 festival goers. MarchFest will be completely weatherproof – all activity areas have the potential to be sheltered from sun, wind or rain.

Craft Beers

Nelson has more craft breweries per head of the population than anywhere else in the country - 16.6% of New Zealand’s breweries serving just 2.25% of the country’s population. At the 2012 Marchfest we will once again be commissioning brand new beers from the region’s superb craft breweries to celebrate the region’s unique position as New Zealand’s craft brewing centre of excellence and only hop growing region - but MARCHFeST is not just about beer:

Eclectic music

MarchFest tries to book the best of local, national and international music act. No bland and lifeless covers bands for this event. Check out this year’s bands

Fine wines

Blackenbrook Vineyards from Nelson will be providing an alternative for those not interested in beer.

Regional cuisine

MarchFest is part of the Slow Food movement – an event for people who value savouring rather than consuming. Expect to see stalls selling anything from freshly caught scallops to locally reared venison, berry-based juices to real fruit ice cream, not to mention great coffee - Nelson is NZ Espresso Central.

Kids and family activities

MarchFest is also about creating an event where responsible drinking and responsible parenting go hand-in-hand. There will be cool stuff for kids to do - organised and managed by an experienced activities specialist.

Sustainability

Of course, we want people to drink locally produced beers, wines and food but we also encourage stallholders to provide recycled or recyclable materials and festivalgoers to arrive and depart by public transport.

MarchFest is geared towards people of discerning taste – people who make informed choices about their food, drink, musical taste and want to attend a family-friendly event, which is safe, fun and a bit different to the run-of-the-mill festival.