The Spinoff’s top pick of events from around the motu. Here’s the best for the week March 26 – April 2.
Welcome to The Spinoff event guide, your weekly, curated selection of gigs, events and exhibitions happening across Aotearoa. If you want to pitch your event for future guides then please use this handy form.
Tāmaki Makaurau
Literature: Wāhine Inside – book launch
Ellen Melville Centre,
7pm Fri, March 27
Free (or $35 to receive the book alongside your entry registration)
Te Kāhui Creative Writing launches their latest anthology – Wāhine Inside – of poetry and prose from women formerly or currently incarcerated.
Tauranga
Jake Baxendale’s Waypeople is one of the many gigs in this year’s Port of Tauranga National Jazz Festival.
Music: National Jazz Festival
Multiple venues
March 27 – April 6
Various prices
Get jazzy in Tauranga for the 63rd National Jazz Festival which encompasses street festivities, seated/ticketed gigs and the youth jazz competitions.
Te Whanganui-a-Tara
Festival: Cuba Dupa
Wellington City
March 28 – 29
Free
Over 80,000 people will flood the CBD over the weekend to listen to live music, dance, eat, marvel at street artists and generally revel. See the timetable online, here.
Ōtautahi
Mark Adams, 1988. Hori Korei. George Grey monument. Albert Park. Tāmaki Makaurau Auckland, 1988 {printed 2024}, silver bromide print, Auckland Art Gallery Toi o Tāmaki, purchased 2025.
Visual art: Mark Adams: A Survey | He Kohinga Whakaahua
Christchurch Art Gallery
On until July 26
Free
A survey of over 50 years of Mark Adams’ photography documenting elements of Aotearoa New Zealand. Stunning, and a lovely Autumnal visual art outing.
Wānaka
A past panel event for Aspiring Conversations.
Literature: Aspiring Conversations
Lake Wānaka Centre
March 27 – 29
Various prices
A weekend of conversations with writers, politicians, economists and artists; including with The Spinoff’s own Toby Manhire (his session is sold out, sorry; but there’s plenty more).