Thousands came together at festivals across the region today to celebrate Waitangi day. While free rides, stalls, and entertainment

Some of the biggest acts in the hipster music world were at Laneway. But they were all outshined by the day's real star: the new venue.

Lorde's in line to play Coachella and the Governor's Ball, so we crunched the numbers to see what it would cost Kiwis to go see her.

Next month's Raggamuffin music festival will be the last, promoters have confirmed.

Leila George looks at the best of the Kiwi festivals for 2017.

WATCH: A new year's resolution has ended up with one young Kiwi billed to perform in front of thousands of festival goers this weekend.

American hip hop artist Chance the Rapper wooed a capacity crowd on the first day of Rhythm and Vines, telling the crowd he would move to NZ.

You might want to curb your enthusiasm for Auckland City Limits because now you have to wait 'til 2018.

Soundsplash has your summer sorted, rounding off its festival lineup with Tiki Taane, Hollie Smith and a bunch more acts.

Here's the lineup and everything else you need to know if you're planning on heading to WOMAD in 2017.

Next year's winery tour features two well known faces - and one semi-new one.

The weather didn't ruin the first day of the Auckland Diwali Festival, but protesters had a go at spoiling a "joyous moment", an organiser says.

The Dixie Chicks are set to bring their multi-Grammy Award winning music to the Mission Estate Winery landscape next April.

With a massive lineup and a killer Bay of Plenty location, Bay Dreams is shaping up to be an amazing New Year's festival.

Auckland's inaugural month-long Korea festival gets under way tonight.

An accidental Auckland music festival is returning for its second year, and its organiser admits there are "probably too many acts" on the bill.

Despite last summer's somewhat disastrous festival season, our options are still looking pretty good.

Raglan-based music festival Soundsplash is returning in 2017 with the likes of Six60, Maala and Diaz Grimm ready to wow the crowds.

Rhythm And Vines has just made its first lineup announcement for 2016, with Chance the Rapper and Rufus headlining the group.

Festival fans have cause to celebrate - Auckland's biggest music event is coming back for round two.

At a whopping $1.45 million a ticket, Iceland's Secret Solstice Festival has got to be the most expensive party ever.

The promoters of an all-new hip-hop festival in Auckland are confident their line-up of veteran hip-hop acts will deliver.

How did Auckland's newest music festival cope with crowds of 25,000? The Herald team takes a look at the things you might have missed at Auckland City Limits.

Bone Thugs-N- Harmony will headline an all-new hip-hop festival in Auckland in May, it has been confirmed.

Prime Minister John Key was among guests at the festival today.

Campbell Smith says Beck was supposed to on the bill at this weekend's Auckland City Limits festival, but "we couldn't make it work".

Booker and Pulitzer Prize-winning authors and standout New Zealand writers are lined up for the Auckland Writers Festival.

Brass Poppies may be a chamber opera, but its 70 minutes achieved the vision and the resonances that one might not find in a piece twice its length.

The skies above Carterton were a riot of colour as participants from New Zealand and around the world took to the air for the 2016 Wairarapa Balloon Festival, which wrapped up on Monday.

The British rockers - consisting of Matt Bellamy, Chris Wolstenholme and Dominic Howard - will play the Friday night of the festival in Somerset, England, later this year.