WLG Lunar New Year Festival ‘24
I went to check out the Lunar New Year Festival down by the waterfront last Sunday. There were activities throughout the weeks leading up to the weekend, notably the fireworks display on the Saturday night. I didn’t make it to those, unfortunately, but I had time to go down to TSB Arena for the Sunday programme.
But first, I should probably address the lack of updates since the last entry back in July last year. Since the visit to the Jurassic World Lego exhibit, I did a couple of shoots, which I wanted to give some time before posting so the people who requested the photos can do their promotional work first. I also shot another football game, before going on a wee jaunt to… Europe! And then I went over to Sydney for work late last year. So expect to have some travel pics up as well over the next few months. On top of that, I’m planning on attending some upcoming events (though I haven’t decided which when there’s date conflicts), along with more football games when I have time. So hopefully some fresher content in the next wee while!
Anyway, back to the Festival. I missed on some of the events down the waterfront, but luckily this installment was still there:
Before the Festival programme started, there was a dragon dance to warm up the crowd outside TSB Arena.
Afterwards I headed inside to check out the stalls before the festival started. On the way in was a stone sculpture, then it was through to the stalls where there were quite a number of funky things for sale!
I found a seat before the programme started, near enough to the front and just off centre in an aisle seat. I only used the Viltrox 75mm f1.2 so it was a good spot without it being either too close or too far from the stage.
There was another dragon dance performance to open the festival, before Mayor Tory Whanau officially opened the ceremonies.
The lights were a bit unhelpful sometimes, for example the blue lighting completely washes over the dragon dance so I preferred the black and white to make sure the faces were more easily visible. Luckily the blue lighting was only on for the dragon dance performances so at least the vibrant colours weren’t wasted with going black and white the whole way.
I tried to hang around as long as I could, but eventually the delicious aroma from the food stalls next door were proving too tempting to resist! So I grabbed some chow on my way out. It was great seeing all the different cultural performances on the day, I really enjoyed the time and I hope you enjoy some of the photos!
