Category: 2019 News

We have Facebook groups to help you organise yourself for Kiwigrass. Kiwigrass Rideshare is for people looking for rides, or those who have spare seats they can offer to others. Kiwigrass Accommodation Share is for sharing tips on good places to say, or offering up spare rooms in AirBnB’s, etc.

We’re also branching out beyond our newsletter, website and Facebook and we now have accounts on Instagram and Twitter, for those folks who don’t use Facebook. I expect both accounts to be absolutely FLOODED with followers who have been desperate for Kiwigrass info but were stymied because we were only on Facebook.*

* Just in case it doesn’t come through a plain text medium, this is me trying to be funny.

Kiwigrass was recently mentioned in a profile of The Pipi Pickers presented in newsletter “Bluegrass Today.”  If you’re a bluegrass lover, there’s no better source of information on all the news that’s fit to print than Bluegrass Today!

Currently there are people coming from Australia, Japan, the US, and the UK to attend Kiwigrass.  Maybe this profile will bring us even more visitors from all over the world!

Click here to read Bluegrass Today profile of The Pipi Pickers.

Brooklands Bluegrass Festival

Right after we announced Kiwigrass we started receiving e-mails about the actual first all-bluegrass festival in New Zealand which was held near Christchurch in 1979.  It seems fitting that exactly 40 years later, we’re trying again.

John Clark of Rural Delivery in Christchurch sent these items from the original festival:

I had a lovely phone conversation with Mr. Clive Collins, the organiser of the Brooklands festival. There were about 100 people there, and 7 bands. Their stage was on the back of a truck, and they were blessed with good weather. By the time they ran this festival he had already mostly moved on to other musical genres, so never chose to do another one, and he wishes Kiwigrass all the best success and his full support.

A popular feature of many American bluegrass festivals is the pre-festival “Music Camp” These typically include intensive instrument lessons and electives on numerous music-related topics, as well as some fun with your fellow campers and time spent with the headline performers at the festival.

Part of our mission with Kiwigrass is to bring this sort of opportunity here to New Zealand. We have lined up members of Lonely Heart String Band and Bluegrass Parkway to come to the festival two days early and host our very own “Music Academy” on the Wednesday and Thursday. We’re still working to set a price for the academy and the details of what will be included. You can get a feel for what we’re envisioning here: /?page_id=156. Have a look and see what you think. If it sounds good to you, let us know, and that will help with our plans.