Kiwigrass is the home of bluegrass for all of New Zealand, and that of course includes the little spoken of West Island.

It is with much pleasure that we bring to you our Australian bands for Kiwigrass 2020:

The first two bands will be familiar to returning Kiwigrassers: Bluegrass Parkway and Nine Mile Creek! Bluegrass Parkway bring their strong traditional bluegrass performance and impeccable style. They will also be joining us as instructors for Academy once again, with one small change in the line-up. Mick Patrick (formerly of bluegrass super-group The Company) is taking over duties on the fiddle. Mick is an outstanding mandolin player and vocalist as well, so he brings an immense bag of skills to this legendary band.

Nine Mile Creek bring the more contemporary side of bluegrass with an excellent blend of original songs and canon covers.

And finally, we are so excited to announce that Coolgrass will be at Kiwigrass 2020. Yes, the sultans of silly, the lords of hot licks, the chiefs of chops! Bruce Packard, Jim Golding, Doug Wallace and Angus Golding are packing up their hats and their deep repertoire of parody and tradition to share the lighter side of bluegrass with us. Don’t let the comedy fool you, this foursome are masterful pickers and singers as well. Coolgrass are the highlight of any show or festival, and we’re sure they’ll feature among your favourites at Kiwigrass.

Yesterday I went to the new Kiwigrass venue, Lake Karāpiro. It’s lovely and I’ll tell you more about that soon, but first I want to talk about what has long been one of my favourite New Zealand small towns: Cambridge. I don’t know what it is, but I have always found Cambridge absolutely charming. Even after the Highway 1 bypass went in, I would detour back into Cambridge on that long drive between Auckland and Wellington, just to visit the Super Loos.

While I was there, I stopped in at the iSite and talked to Karina. I know many of you are already calling around the area looking for accommodation. Karina is your woman. Give her a call or e-mail (+647 823 3456, info@cambridge.co.nz), she can help you out. She has seen over 95% of Cambridge accommodation and they have 145 accommodation members on their website, www.cambridge.co.nz. They can cater for any budget or group size, and can give you options to meet any requirements.

If you’re planning on camping, you can book that directly through Lake Karāpiro.

My tip for Cambridge is to make sure you take some time to walk across the Victoria St bridge, the river gorge is quite spectacular there.

Barry, Nat and I are off to the IBMA World of Bluegrass in Raleigh, North Carolina this month. I’ll write again in a week or so with more exciting Kiwigrass news. In the meantime, get that accommodation booked for Kiwigrass (30 January – 2 February 2020) and Kiwigrass Academy (29-30 January 2020), and consider a couple extra days to explore Cambridge and the rest of the amazing, fun, beautiful, adventurous Waikato region.

– Jenine

After the amazing excitement of the first Kiwigrass Academy and Festival in 2019, we are going to ramp it up in 2020, with a bigger and better festival at a bigger and better venue in Waipa, a few minutes drive from Cambridge.

As soon as we have more news, you’ll hear about it, but you can be confident there’s going to be a Kiwigrass Academy to help you and inspire you to higher things, and a Kiwigrass Festival that will build on last year’s winning combination of participation and performance.

So mark it on your calendars now and book that annual leave.

Kiwigrass Academy

Wednesday 29th January 2020 – Thursday 30 January 2020

Kiwigrass Festival

Friday evening 31 January 2020 – Sunday afternoon 2 February 2020

 

 

Kiwigrass festival and Kiwigrass Academy tickets

Great news: our shiny new ticketing system is set up and ready to go. You can purchase weekend or day passes to the Kiwigrass festival (31 Jan – 2 Feb) and tickets to the Kiwigrass Academy (29-30 Jan) here:

Kiwigrass festival and Kiwigrass Academy ticket prices are now inclusive of GST, service fees, and credit card fees. The price shown is the final price you’ll pay, no surprises at check-out.

Camping tickets

If you plan to camp you need to purchase camping tickets separately.  To book a site at the lovely Lake Karāpiro Campground, visit their website:

We’re looking forward to seeing you at Kiwigrass! Don’t hesitate to get in touch if you have any questions.