Flight of the Conchords\u2019 Bret McKenzie will open the event alongside his eight-piece band, The State Highway Wonders.<\/p>\n
In a statement, Drax Project said the Town Hall was closed before the band even formed, and playing the venue had long been a dream.<\/p>\n
WellingtonNZ\u2019s Heidi Morton said the Town Hall\u2019s reopening represented a \u201cdefining cultural moment for our city\u201d, with the event billed as a \u201ccelebration of music, community, and heritage\u201d.<\/p>\n
Presale tickets go live tomorrow.<\/p>\n
Wellington Town Hall Te Whare Whakarauika has been undergoing $329m strengthening and refurbishment works. photo \/ WCC<\/p>\n
The reopening follows one of Wellington\u2019s most contentious civic projects, plagued by escalating costs and controversy.<\/p>\n
The cost of earthquake-strengthening and redeveloping the Town Hall has ballooned from $43m to $60m, $90m, $112m and is now estimated to be $329m.<\/p>\n
Demolishing the building was said at the time to be unrealistic, due to the Town Hall\u2019s heritage listing and consenting constraints, council officials said.<\/p>\n
Wellington City Council\u2019s former chief executive Barbara McKerrow said in 2023 that it would be one of the most complex and risky projects undertaken in recent times in New Zealand.<\/p>\n
The refreshed site also includes state-of-the-art audio recording studios in the basement, operated by the New Zealand Symphony Orchestra.<\/p>\n
Sir Peter Jackson and Dame Fran Walsh gave $2m in August to help build the new facility<\/a>.<\/p>\n Ethan Manera<\/a> is a Wellington-based journalist covering Wellington issues, local politics and business in the capital. He can be emailed at ethan.manera@nzme.co.nz<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Flight of the Conchords\u2019 Bret McKenzie will open the event alongside his eight-piece band, The State Highway Wonders.…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":480782,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[19838,74,23930,241773,156,57236,36446,440,130,111,139,69,59966,6777,3263,1230,2574,9882,131,61,2951,52,15900,1533,102,1530],"class_list":["post-480781","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-entertainment","tag-19838","tag-after","tag-band","tag-drax","tag-entertainment","tag-hall","tag-headline","tag-local","tag-more","tag-new-zealand","tag-newzealand","tag-nz","tag-officially","tag-performance","tag-project","tag-reopen","tag-reopening","tag-spectacular","tag-than","tag-to","tag-town","tag-wellington","tag-wellingtons","tag-will","tag-with","tag-years"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/480781","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=480781"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/480781\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/480782"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=480781"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=480781"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=480781"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}