The New Zealand Festival of the Arts is the country's premier international arts festival and one of the most significant cultural events in the Southern Hemisphere. Held biennially in Wellington over three weeks in late February and March, it brings together the finest theatre, dance, music, opera, visual art and interdisciplinary performance from Aotearoa and around the world for a programme that consistently sets the standard for arts presentation in New Zealand.

Since its founding in 1986, the festival has introduced New Zealand audiences to some of the world's most extraordinary artists and companies, while also providing a major platform for New Zealand work on the international stage. Wellington's compact, walkable city centre and its passionate arts community make it an ideal host — the festival transforms the capital into a genuinely cosmopolitan cultural city for its duration, with performances, installations and events filling venues and public spaces across the waterfront, Te Papa, the Michael Fowler Centre and beyond.

For arts lovers, the New Zealand Festival of the Arts is essential. It is the festival that challenges, moves and surprises — that brings work you could not see anywhere else in the country and leaves you with memories that last long after the curtain falls. In alternate years, Wellington feels the particular energy of a city at the centre of the world's arts conversation.