{"id":429356,"date":"2026-05-15T18:34:23","date_gmt":"2026-05-15T18:34:23","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/429356\/"},"modified":"2026-05-15T18:34:23","modified_gmt":"2026-05-15T18:34:23","slug":"the-2-metre-tall-600kg-letters-brightening-up-central-auckland","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/429356\/","title":{"rendered":"The 2 metre-tall, 600kg letters brightening up central Auckland"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><img decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/4JOLGXU_Image_5_jfif.jpeg\" width=\"1050\" height=\"700\" alt=\"A new Auckland sign has been unveiled this morning at the base of the Sky Tower.\"\/><\/p>\n<p class=\"photo-captioned__information\">\n<p>Photo: RNZ \/ Calvin Samuel\n<\/p>\n<p>A new Auckland sign has been unveiled this morning at the base of the Sky Tower.<\/p>\n<p>Each letter of the gold-wrapped aluminium sign, paid for by SkyCity, is two metres tall, and the installation is 10 metres long.<\/p>\n<p>Each of the eight letters weighs approximately 600kg.<\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/4JOLGXU_Image_6_jfif.jpeg\" width=\"1050\" height=\"700\" alt=\"A new Auckland sign has been unveiled this morning at the base of the Sky Tower.\"\/><\/p>\n<p class=\"photo-captioned__information\">\n<p>Photo: RNZ \/ Calvin Samuel\n<\/p>\n<p>The sign will also light up at night.<\/p>\n<p>SkyCity&#8217;s creative studio head and project lead Joshua Smith said it was about time Auckland had its own sign.<\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/4JOLGXU_Image_jfif.jpeg\" width=\"1050\" height=\"700\" alt=\"A new Auckland sign has been unveiled this morning at the base of the Sky Tower.\"\/><\/p>\n<p class=\"photo-captioned__information\">\n<p>Photo: RNZ \/ Calvin Samuel\n<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;Taup\u014d has one, Wellington&#8217;s got one, so we [SkyCity] thought, &#8216;Let&#8217;s build a big Auckland sign that people can stop and engage with it, and take photos. It can be a meeting place&#8217;.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;We just thought it was a cool opportunity to do something fun.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/4JOLGXU_Image_3_jfif.jpeg\" width=\"1050\" height=\"700\" alt=\"A new Auckland sign has been unveiled this morning at the base of the Sky Tower.\"\/><\/p>\n<p class=\"photo-captioned__information\">\n<p>Photo: RNZ \/ Calvin Samuel\n<\/p>\n<p>For its unveiling, each of the letters has been wrapped with a design chosen by either the Auckland Blues, Ng\u0101ti Wh\u0101tua \u014cr\u0101kei, Auckland Pride, a local artist or a member of the public, which will be removed after three weeks.<\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/4JOLGXU_Image_4_jfif.jpeg\" width=\"1050\" height=\"700\" alt=\"A new Auckland sign has been unveiled this morning at the base of the Sky Tower.\"\/><\/p>\n<p class=\"photo-captioned__information\">\n<p>Photo: RNZ \/ Calvin Samuel\n<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;We ran a competition for public submissions for artwork to go on the front of each letter and we also worked with some community partners.<\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/4JOLGXU_Image_1_jfif.jpeg\" width=\"1050\" height=\"700\" alt=\"A new Auckland sign has been unveiled this morning at the base of the Sky Tower.\"\/><\/p>\n<p class=\"photo-captioned__information\">\n<p>Photo: RNZ \/ Calvin Samuel\n<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;For the reveal, we have these beautiful decals on the front of each letter that people can come down and have a look at.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>He said SkyCity had plans to decorate the letters for special events.<\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/4JOLGXU_Image_2_jfif.jpeg\" width=\"1050\" height=\"700\" alt=\"A new Auckland sign has been unveiled this morning at the base of the Sky Tower.\"\/><\/p>\n<p class=\"photo-captioned__information\">\n<p>Photo: RNZ \/ Calvin Samuel\n<\/p>\n<p>SkyCity would not confirm how much the sign cost, but Smith said it was less than similar signs of the same size.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/radionz.us6.list-manage.com\/subscribe?u=211a938dcf3e634ba2427dde9&amp;id=b3d362e693\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Sign up for Ng\u0101 Pitopito K\u014drero<\/a>, a daily newsletter curated by our editors and delivered straight to your inbox every weekday.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Photo: RNZ \/ Calvin Samuel A new Auckland sign has been unveiled this morning at the base of&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":429357,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[48,47,42,43,49,46,44,45,40,38,41,39],"class_list":["post-429356","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-headlines","tag-audio","tag-current-affairs","tag-headlines","tag-news","tag-podcasts","tag-public-radio","tag-radio-new-zealand","tag-rnz","tag-top-news","tag-top-stories","tag-topnews","tag-topstories"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/429356","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=429356"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/429356\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/429357"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=429356"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=429356"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=429356"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}