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Kidsfest annual winter school holiday festival

Kidsfest is New Zealand’s largest and longest-running children’s festival, held annually in the July school holidays. It was created in 1992 to bring winter holiday fun to children aged up to 13 years (primary-school aged).

Events happen all around Christchurch, Waimakariri and Selwyn districts. Each year the colourful Kidsfest booklets are distributed to schools and libraries throughout the area. They list all the details of events happening in each district. You can also browse all the events in the region on the Kidsfest website, launched with the brochure each year.

Kidsfest is an opportunity for a broad range of community groups, amateur and professional entertainers and related businesses to produce special events for children, many of which are free or have a minimal charge to attend.

Kidsfest celebrated its 21st anniversary in 2012 - bigger and better than ever!

Kidsfest website: updated annually with details of all the events in the region plus games, puzzles and downloads.

Kidsfest 2013

Kidsfest will run from 13-27 July 2013. We already have quite a few events registered for the Waimakariri District including a quiz night for families, robot factory, knit problems, a silent clown and Frank Malone and Rachel Harre. Look out for the Kidsfest booklet - due out at the end of May! Kidsfest tickets will be available from 7 June 2013.

KIDSFEST 2012 at Waimakariri District Libraries

Winter Night at the Library. The Kidsfest activities offered by the Waimakariri District Libraries were well received by close to 1300 participants who availed themselves of the fun, community-spirited events. The library shows, planned and performed by a colourful singing, dancing, ukulele-playing library staff team, were an instant sell-out. The grandparent events were a new initiative this year with the Friends of the Library reading stories from their childhood.

The programme included:

Grandparent's Night at the Library was attended by 60 people in Rangiora and 46 in Kaiapoi. This event was a big hit with the crowd of pyjama-clad littlies and their equally animated grandparents.
Winter Family Night with the library staff sold out very quickly and was attended by 60 people in Rangiora and 40 in Kaiapoi. Children made and decorated individual snowflakes for display in the library and were then entertained by our librarians’ show of songs, skits and stories.
'Make and Create' with Lesley Ottey was attended by 28 people in Rangiora and 20 in Kaiapoi.
The Sport Suzie show had a great attendance with 160 people at each of the venues in Rangiora and Kaiapoi seeing Sport Suzie, New Zealand’s crazy aerobics and sport fanatic, inspired by the great Jane Fonda, Flashdance, and the music of the eighties.
The Adrian Kirk Awesome Winter Circus Show was a huge success with 320 people attending in Rangiora and 220 in Kaiapoi for a show of juggling, acrobatics, unicycling and biscuit racing awesomeness!
The Kids Market in Victoria Park (assisted by Mark O'Connell from the library) had 180 stalls.

KIDSFEST 2011

Bird Mask. Kidsfest events were well attended in 2011. The programme included:

Family Night at the Rangiora Library saw 60 children and 28 adults making paper bag masks which was great fun. The parents took this task very seriously and the cleaners are still finding glitter around the bookshelves. The children enjoyed parading and doing The Birdie Dance in their masks. The Library staff performed a number of poems and readings and led the audience in a range of interactive songs of entertaining literary merit.
El Gregoe Magic Shows were attended by 180 people in Rangiora and 135 in Kaiapoi. El Gregoe managed to produce his macaw as promised, to the delight of the children.
Acclaimed children’s author, Margaret Mahy charmed her audience of 86 with recitations of works such as 'Bubble Trouble' and an old favourite about the things that you lose, and find, 'Down the back of the chair'.
The Great Carrot and Pickle Show thrilled 189 children as clowns, Carrot and Pickles cavorted about the stage in Kaiapoi.
Children were all over the Libraries, excitedly carrying out a search for hidden clues on a Library Treasure Hunt. Over the two weeks of school holidays more than 300 children enjoyed this activity at the Libraries in Rangiora, Kaiapoi and Oxford.

Kidsfest 2010

Kidsfest was a great success at Waimakariri District Libraries again in 2010.

Over 500 kids took part in events in and around the three libraries. Performers Craig Smith and Liz Weir performed to sold-out audiences in Rangiora and Kaiapoi and the Great Paper Plane competition saw paper craft flying around the books!