Connect with the natural world and learn about sustainability at Ecofest 2025.
Connect with the natural world and learn about sustainability at Ecofest 2025.
Looking for something to do? There’s plenty on this weekend - and plenty to plan ahead for.
In Auckland, as one festival closes, another two open and that’s how we like it. It’s the final weekend of the Auckland Arts Festival and the first for Ecofest and World of Cultures, which means this mid-March weekend in Tāmaki Makaurau is crawling with events. If you can’t find something to do on this list, you’re probably a recluse. Beyond this Saturday and Sunday, we’ve also included three top picks for next weekend that you might need to plan ahead for.
Ecofest 2025
Even if Musk gets people on Mars, you’re probably not going to be one of them so it’s in your best interest to protect this wee planet of ours. Ecofest 2025 can help you with that, it’s hosting more than 400 events related to sustainability and environmental awareness over the next month. You could start collecting moth pod plants, sign up for a composting workshop, learn some upcycling skills, learn how to make a food forest, fix your broken household items at a repair cafe and loads more. There’s lots of fun to be had at Ecofest events too - there are bike raves and a harvest festival, journaling and art workshops and all of the events provide opportunities to connect with your community and work together to keep Aotearoa the little slice of paradise that we’re lucky to call ours.
Where: Various locations in Tāmaki Makaurau. Visit ecofest.org.nz for the full schedule of events.
The Auckland Travel Show
This weekend is the inaugural Auckland Travel Show by Allianz at the Auckland Showgrounds. If you’ve got travel on your 2025 bingo card or you’re just dreaming of a new adventure to a destination unknown at a time unknown, the Auckland Travel Show is your friend. Across both Saturday and Sunday, visitors to the show will be able to meet travel experts, hear talks and see presentations, learn insider travel tips, have a go at some interactive experiences and let their wanderlust run wild. There are lots of exclusive packages and deals on offer so you could walk in with a vague desire to go on a holiday and walk out with your dream luxury cruise or intrepid adventure locked and loaded.
When: March 22, 10am-5pm and March 23, 10am-4pm.
Where: Auckland Showgrounds, 217 Green Lane West, Epsom, Auckland.
Expand your horizons at the inaugural Auckland Travel Show this weekend.
Te Ahurei Toi o Tāmaki Auckland Arts Festival
It’s the closing weekend of the Auckland Arts Festival and there are some incredible shows bringing up the rear. Six, which has been the headlining show of the festival and is a real barn burner, will have its last three performances on Saturday and Sunday. The Scottish Ballet’s mesmerising reimagining of A Streetcar Named Desire also has three remaining shows this weekend. Additionally, there’s cabaret act Smashed - The Nightcap in the Spiegeltent; French-Canadian circus show Animal at Q Theatre; A Mixtape for Maladies at ASB Waterfront Theatre; Black Grace: This is Not a Retrospective at the Town Hall and lots more. Essentially all of Tāmaki Makaurau’s major performance venues are hosting large-scale productions this weekend and, if you want to live in a city with a thriving arts scene that international productions see as a worthwhile stop on their tour, you need to get out and support them.
When: On now until March 23.
Where: Various locations in Tāmaki Makaurau. Visit aaf.co.nz for the full schedule and tickets.
'Animal' at Auckland Arts Festival 2025. Photo / Benoit Z Leroux
Everybody Eats in Te Komititanga
This might well be the most heartwarming event of the year: Everybody Eats is popping up in Te Komititanga Square on Saturday. Now in its eighth year, Everybody Eats offers meals where customers pay what they can afford at occasional pop-up locations and permanent sites in Onehunga, Glen Innes, and Wellington. The social initiative serves up three-course meals using rescued food, ensuring sustainability. Those who can afford to pay more do so, allowing others to pay less or nothing at all. Saturday’s community lunch in the city, Everybody Eats in Te Komititanga, hopes to bring together people from all walks of life, encouraging attendees to get to know people outside their own little bubble of existence and promoting empathy, understanding and the joy of breaking bread with other humans. Tickets are free with the option to pay it forward on the day.
When: March 22, 12pm-2pm.
Where: Te Komititanga Square, lower Queen St (next to Commercial Bay and Britomart’s Waitematā Station), Auckland Central.
Price: Free tickets available from events.humanitix.com with some walk-ins available.
Community initiative Everybody Eats has been feeding Aucklanders for eight years. Photo / Luke Foley-Martin
Guide Dog Puppy Appeal
This is less an event as it is a call to action. This month is Blind Low Vision NZ’s annual Guide Dog Puppy Appeal. The organisation receives no government funding and these puppies are very expensive to raise, train and maintain - about $175,000. But, they provide an incredible service for blind and low-vision New Zealanders, helping them to participate more fully in the world around them and becoming a loved and trusted companion. BLVNZ breeds approximately 100 potential guide dogs a year, of which about 25 will graduate to become guide dogs. So dig deep and see if you can find a few dollars to help breed and train these beautiful animals, enabling more blind and low-vision New Zealanders to live more fulfilling lives.
Guide dogs are a vital help for Kiwis like Ocean Armstrong. Photo / Sarah Weber
World of Cultures Festival
Auckland Council launches the World of Cultures festival this week, which gives Aucklanders the opportunity to revel in the rich cultural diversity of Tāmaki Makaurau and maybe learn something new about a culture different from their own. Kicking off on International Race Relations Day, March 21, across the next two weeks there are events happening all over Auckland, big and small. From cooking classes and cultural performances to traditional craft workshops and food truck festivals, there are too many events to mention here but a browse through the programme is guaranteed to lead you to something tasty, literally and/or metaphorically. This weekend there’s Filipino weaving; Dancing in Parks; a Dragon Bonsai Day; a Korean Tteokguk Cooking Class; a Thai Culture Day; food trucks and many many more. Find out what’s happening near you and experience the cultures of the world, right here in your own backyard.
Auckland Council's 2025 World of Cultures festival kicks off from March 21 in Tāmaki Makaurau.
Plan ahead: Jackie Goes Prima Diva
National treasure Jackie Clarke is taking to the stage for two performances only next week at Q Theatre Loft. Jackie Goes Prima Diva is a musical revue of sorts in which Clarke will sing some of the biggest hits by some of the biggest legends in show biz. She’s taking on Judy Garland, Shirley Bassey, Nina Simone, Peggy Lee, Barbara Streisand, Alison Durbin, Dolly Parton, Kate Bush and our own The Beths. Accompanied on piano by Karl Benton, Clarke has perfected this show while touring it throughout the country, and because she’s such a natural comedienne, it’s guaranteed to be a truly entertaining evening from start to finish.
Price: Tickets $39.50-$55 + booking fees from qtheatre.co.nz.
Local legend Jackie Clarke will take the stage at Q Theatre in Tāmaki Makaurau.
Plan ahead: Ready & Reset
This one is a little left of centre for these listings but something we could all do with right about now. Ready & Reset is hosting its inaugural Countryside Reset Day next Saturday. It’s a one-day retreat in a secret Clevedon location - think rolling green meadows not secret underground bunkers - where attendees will participate in a range of wellness practices. Ready & Reset founder Esther Cronin will conduct a Pilates Strength Flow, and there will be a sound bath, guided breathwork, lymphatic workshops, and sauna and ice bath sessions. Nourishing refreshments will be provided and there will be talks by guest wellness experts. It’s a day to truly tune out the cacophony of busy chatter in your life and mind, and find some peace, even if just for one day.
Wellness entrepreneur Esther Cronin is hosting Ready & Reset in Clevedon at a secret location.
Plan ahead: Love; Mum
To say motherhood is a blessing and a curse is reductive because no mother would call their child a curse, but becoming a mother can bring with it an immense weight that for some becomes silently crushing. Love; Mum is a new play by Sela Faletolu-Fasi that’s inspired by the goodbye letter she wrote to her six children when she was at her lowest. It tells the story of five Pasifika mothers who meet at a “Mums Anonymous” group and form a bond that gets tested as their lives move through different stages. Each of the women in the group represents a part of Faletolu-Fasi’s struggle. Both a heartbreaking and heartwarming play, with plenty of laughter along the way, Love, Mum is ultimately a love letter to Faletolu-Fasi’s children - a letter that at one stage in her life, she couldn’t imagine possible.
