New Zealand's biggest festival keeps growing

New Zealand will celebrate its role as host of RWC 2011 by staging the biggest nationwide festival the country has ever seen...

The REAL New Zealand Festival will run from September 9 to October 23, and will complement the match and team hosting schedule for RWC 2011. But it will go well beyond the 23 centres hosting teams and matches, and will include every part of the country.

Festival Director, Briony Ellis, says the Festival will include events and attractions all over the country which showcase New Zealand’s arts, food and wine, heritage, culture, entertainment, industries and business, experiences and lifestyle – including our abiding passion for Rugby.

“We’ve called it ‘REAL’ because the programme for the festival celebrates the aspects of living in New Zealand that Kiwis are most proud of – the experiences that present the real New Zealand, and events that showcase our people, landscapes, languages, culture and stories”.

“There’ll be plenty of time between matches so we want to encourage people to take the long way around from one match to the next and really see the country and meet the people.”