The Queenstown Winter Festival is an annual event held in and around the alpine
New Zealand
New Zealand ( mi, Aotearoa ) is an island country in the southwestern Pacific Ocean. It consists of two main landmasses—the North Island () and the South Island ()—and over 700 smaller islands. It is the sixth-largest island count ...
town of
Queenstown. The festival has been held annually since 1975. It is sometimes referred to as "The Southern Hemisphere's biggest winter party".
Queenstown is a major winter destination, lying close to several of the southern hemisphere's major ski fields, among them
The Remarkables
The Remarkables ( mi, Kawarau) are a mountain range and skifield in Otago in the South Island of New Zealand. Located on the southeastern shore of Lake Wakatipu, the range lives up to its name by rising sharply to create a remarkable backdrop ...
,
Cardrona, and
Coronet Peak
Coronet Peak is a commercial skifield in Queenstown, New Zealand located seven kilometres west of Arrowtown, on the southern slopes of the 1,649-metre peak which shares its name. A popular ski resort in the Southern Hemisphere, Coronet Peak off ...
. During the 1970s, locals began organising a winter festival close to the beginning of each ski season, starting with a 1975 event organised by musician Peter Doyle and Laurie Wilde, manager of
Eichardt's Hotel.
[Four decades of winter wackiness: Queenstown Winter Festival]
" ''www.queenstownnz.co.nz''. Retrieved 7 September 2019.
In the years since that time, the festival has grown to the point where events spread over ten days each June, and attract over 40,000 people. The main part of the festival is the final four days, with free live entertainment in and around the town. Events at the festival are deliberately aimed at being both fun and unusual. A music and comedy programme is augmented by events ranging from a
polar plunge
Polar may refer to:
Geography
Polar may refer to:
* Geographical pole, either of two fixed points on the surface of a rotating body or planet, at 90 degrees from the equator, based on the axis around which a body rotates
*Polar climate, the cli ...
to
tug of war
Tug of war (also known as tug o' war, tug war, rope war, rope pulling, or tugging war) is a sport that pits two teams against each other in a test of strength: teams pull on opposite ends of a rope, with the goal being to bring the rope a certa ...
on skis. Other events at previous festivals have included
New Zealand Ice Hockey League
The NZIHL is New Zealand’s national ice hockey league. It is an amateur league that was formed in 2005 to develop the sport in New Zealand and to give the top players regular competition against each other to improve the skill level of the game ...
matches and the Peak-to-Peak endurance race. Fireworks and laser light displays are regularly held.
, the festival is known as The Real Journeys Queenstown Winter Festival for sponsorship reasons. The festival is important to Queenstown's economy, bringing millions of dollars into the town.
Thousands turn out for Winter Festival
" '' Otago Daily Times, 24 June 2019. Retrieved 7 September 2019.
References
External links
Official website
1975 establishments in New Zealand
Winter festivals in New Zealand
Queenstown, New Zealand
June events
Annual events in New Zealand
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