Homegrown 2021: Luck and Sanitizer as Festival of the Night

Feelings of fortune and hygiene hung in the air when one of the largest music festivals held anywhere in the world began in the capital.

Nearly 25,000 kiwis were expected at Homegrown, which began Saturday at 1 p.m. on the Wellington Boardwalk, and will continue late into the night.

Starting in the mid-afternoon, streams of festival goers began lining up at various entry sites for the 2021 festival, which features 50 acts on six different stages side by side, making the festival the collection. New Zealand’s largest music single with a single entry.

With time clearing the capital’s cloudy skies in the early afternoon to turn them blue towards night, people scanned through the festival gates with their wristbands and the Covid Tracer app.

READ MORE:
* Wellington’s Homegrown festival on track for 2021
* Record amounts of MDMA seized at the New Zealand border
* Sold out, local Wellington music concert goers will pause in Christchurch after shootings

This year, the festival has undoubtedly been marked by the pandemic, with even a traveling group of “sani-squads” of sanitation champions resembling both. Ghostbusters characters offering hand sanitizer and QR code scanning services to groups of pooled ticket holders.

Ria Hall, who was one of the first performers of the evening’s festival, began her moving act by saying how fortunate Aotearoa was to be in a position where live music could carry on on such a large scale.

“How lucky are we? … We are one of the few countries in the world where we can perform, ”he told the cold afternoon crowd at the festival’s Arena Stage, near TSB Arena.

“As a full-time artist, as a mother too, to be here in this space doing what we love, for the love of music and for the love of our audience. [is a privilege] … thank you very much for coming “.

Before Hall’s performance, a whakatau and mihi was held with representatives of mana whenua from local iwi Taranaki Whānui and Ngāti Toa Rangatira to welcome the crowds into the space and to officially open the festival.

In the afternoon, the crowds outside were enjoying Lepani’s vibes as much as they were inside with Troy Kingi. Other acts to perform throughout the night include Stan Walker, Elemeno P, Nesian Mystik, The Feelers, Opshop, Che Fu & The Kratez, Katchafire, Trinity Roots, Sons of Zion, LAB, Ladi6, Savage, and Black Seeds. .

Beneath drones and helicopters flying overhead and rumbling speaker systems reverberating through the city, ambulances and other emergency service personnel, including lifeguards, were on standby as festival goers began to submerge. in the sounds of the artists on display.

Some 1,500 members of the Homegrown crew were busy running, handling the crowds of roughly 24,000 ticket holders who will be attending the festival sometime during the night.

In recent weeks, those same crews have worked hard unloading nearly 190 containers of equipment that make up the sets for the six stages spread across the boardwalk.

As the festival progressed, Wellington police continued to warn people about the possibility of an increased risk of drug use and the possibility of someone ingesting a substance that is more dangerous than what it says on its package.

In a post on the Wellington District Police Facebook page, police warned that a synthetic cathinone known as eutilone was circulating in the capital before Homegrown.

Authorities warned festival goers to be aware that dangerous amounts of eutilone had been detected in yellow “Red Bull” tablets, which people can presume to be MDMA, and urged attendees to be vigilant.

Last year, Covid-19 forced organizers to postpone Homegrown until March of this year, drawing criticism when ticket holders were not refunded.