Photo credit: Joaquin Dibbern
WOMAD 2017 – that’s a wrap!
More details to be revealed on the WOMAD website in the coming weeks.
The 13th anniversary “of the most beautiful outdoor festivals in the world” WOMAD 2017, set in the stunning 55-acre Brooklands Park and TSB Bowl of Brooklands, New Plymouth was one of the highest selling WOMAD weekends in its 13 year history, including a completely sold out Saturday, putting the site at capacity with 12,500 audience members and over 16,000 people in total including all of the workers, artists and vendors. Friday audience numbers were 11,500 with Sunday numbers looking to be similar.
Event Director and NZ Programme Manager, Emere Wano said the festival team was thrilled with the attendence and good weather. “The magic of WOMAD is the journey of discovery, finding a new favourite food, point of view and of course, artist. We really tried to provide a diverse line-up that was appealing to all age groups, and this year with the inclusion of Mt Eden and BAYNK, we definitely widened our demographic.”
Suzanne Porter, Taranaki Arts Festival Trust CEO, comments, “It was a very solid line up across the board. The new programme World of Words went off and was very successful, especially the Poetry Slam which was at capacity. Poetry Slam judge, Penny Ashton performed a very moving, original poem that left not a dry eye in the crowd.”
While the rude boys and girls of the 70’s were reliving their youth at the Bowl Stage with The Specials (UK) on Friday night, the youth of 2017 were creating their first festival memories atBAYNK (NZ) with the chant “I Love BAYNK and BAYNK loves me!” heard echoing out across the Gables lawn. 2017 put the “D” back into WOMAD with The New Zealand Dance Company, dressed simply yet stunningly in all black and white, enthralling the all-seated audience. It was a year that also saw an exceptionally strong female line up with Oumou Sangaré (Mali), Ana Tijoux (Chile), Aziza Brahim (Western Sahara/Spain), Nattali Rize (Jamaica/Australia) and Inna Modja (Mali) – known for their work in speaking to political issues – delivered stunning performances to enraptured crowds.
Keeping festival-goers dancing right up to the very end, Austrian Electro-swing band Parov Stelar and New Zealand’s own producer and multi-instrumentalist Lord Echo closed Sunday night’s festivities. After a weekend of truly spectacular Taranaki weather, this was the perfect finale to what is being touted as one of the greatest WOMAD NZ festivals yet!
Photo credit: Joaquin Dibbern
WOMAD THE FESTIVAL
WOMAD – World of Music, Arts and Dance – the world’s festival is held once again at The stunning Brooklands Park and TSB Bowl of Brooklands, New Plymouth, which is frequently described by visitors and performers as one of the most beautiful venues in the world. The New Zealand/Aotearoa festival is being held 17-19 March 2017.
WOMAD – World of Music, Arts and Dance the internationally established festival, brings together artists from all over the globe. The central aim of the WOMAD festival is to celebrate the world’s many forms of music, arts and dance.
As an organisation, WOMAD now works in many different ways, but our aims are always the same – at festivals, performance events, through recorded releases and through educational projects, we aim to excite, to inform, and to create awareness of the worth and potential of a multicultural society.
Since the first festival in the UK in 1982, WOMAD has held more than 160 festivals, creating events in 27 countries and islands all over the world. WOMAD internationally has presented more than one thousand artists at the festivals, bringing the expression of more than 100 different countries to a live audience of over one million people.
First created in the UK by Peter Gabriel and Thomas Brooman over 30 years ago, WOMAD was first presented in Taranaki in 2003, and celebrates its 13th anniversary in 2017. In its tenure the WOMAD festival in Taranaki has had 150’000 visitors through its gates and generated over 100 million dollars for the local economy.
WOMAD in New Zealand is presented by TAFT – Taranaki Arts Festival Trust.
CEO – Suzanne Porter
WOMAD NZ Programme Manager & Event Director – Emere Wano
Keep up-to-date with everything:
www.womad.co.nz
www.facebook.com/WomadNZ
www.twitter.com/WomadNZ
www.instagram.com/womadnz
www.youtube.com/channel/WOMADNZ
https://open.spotify.com/user/womadnz
#WOMADNZ
Best, Lisa & Lucy.
WOMAD NZ Publicity / The Label
lucy@thelabel.co.nz / lisa@thelabel.co.nz
