![\"The](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/06\/the-event-was-now-held-in-the-grounds-of-the-153-year-old-fi-PBARUEYTZVGW3CVA6EXR3D2IPQ.png\")
<\/p>\nDunedin has kicked off winter solstice celebrations a week early with its annual Midwinter Carnival this weekend.<\/p>\n
The celebration of Dunedin’s dark mid-winter has been so popular, that capacity has had to be reduced to prevent overcrowding. <\/p>\n
A limit of around 8000 people this year would be spread across two nights.<\/p>\n
The 2026 theme is ‘A Rustle in the Night’, touting glowing dragons, watchful ruru, and ancient tuatara lanterns to light the skies. <\/p>\n
Dunedin Midwinter Carnival Trust’s Paul McClellan-Smith told 1News the event was “a tradition that harks back to the fire festivals of Europe and the solstice and the shortest day, and shining a light of hope in that cold, dark time of year”.<\/p>\n
The event has been so popular that capacity has had to be reduced to prevent overcrowding\u00a0 (Source: 1News)<\/p>\n
Now into its 29th year, he said in the past about 30,000 people had gathered on one night.<\/p>\n
“So we used to really struggle, even with the big processions, having overcrowding and people getting to see what was going on.”<\/p>\n
Instead of street festivities, the events and displays were now held in throughout the church grounds and buildings of the 153-year-old First Church.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
The event was now held in the grounds of the 153-year-old First Church. (Source: 1News)<\/p>\n
Performers have been rehearsing for three months, including aerial specialist Genia Colling.<\/p>\n
\u201cYou’re constantly up in the air. You’re spinning, you’re training. You’re definitely in pretty good fitness,” she said. <\/p>\n
The final two sessions of the carnival tonight were also expected to sell out again.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Dunedin has kicked off winter solstice celebrations a week early with its annual Midwinter Carnival this weekend. The…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":475614,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[2567,1080,273,42,43,40,38,41,39],"class_list":["post-475613","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-headlines","tag-arts-and-culture","tag-dunedin-otago","tag-environment","tag-headlines","tag-news","tag-top-news","tag-top-stories","tag-topnews","tag-topstories"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/475613","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=475613"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/475613\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/475614"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=475613"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=475613"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=475613"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}