Christmas Tree Festival - Registration

Name: Christmas Tree Festival - Registration
Start: 2026-10-29T13:00:00+1300
End: 2026-11-26T23:50:00+1300
Location: Otorohanga Museum

Thu, 29 Oct, 1pm - Thu, 26 Nov, 11:50pm NZDT

Otorohanga Museum

Ōtorohanga, New Zealand

Ōtorohanga Creative Conduit

142 followers · Contact host

Description

🎄 Ōtorohanga Christmas Tree Festival 2026

Get Creative. Celebrate Community. Share the Christmas Spirit!

Calling all local businesses, schools, clubs, community groups and organizations.

Let's fill the Ōtorohanga Museum with Christmas magic!

We're inviting our wonderful local community to design and decorate their own Christmas tree for the Ōtorohanga Christmas Tree Festival, running from Thursday 26 November to Saturday 5 December 2026.

Whether your tree is traditional, quirky, proudly Kiwi-inspired, wonderfully creative or made from recycled treasures, we want to see your imagination shine!

🎨 Who Can Enter?

Everyone is welcome to take part! Gather your team and create a tree that represents your business, school, club, community group or organization.

Entry is FREE! Each entrant supplies and decorates their own tree. There is no need to spend big — we're celebrating creativity, community spirit and the stories behind your designs.

📍 Event Details

Location: Ōtorohanga Museum

Festival dates: Thursday 26 November – Saturday 5 December 2026

Public viewing: Thursdays, Fridays and Saturdays, 12pm–3pm, during the festival.

Additional viewing hours may be available on Friday 4 December to coincide with the Christmas Parade. Details will be announced closer to the event.

📦 Tree Delivery

Please bring your completed tree to the museum during one of these delivery windows:

Saturday 21 November, 12pm–1pm
Thursday 26 November, 9:30am–11:30am

Entrants are responsible for supplying and decorating their own tree.

A few important requirements:

Trees must not require watering.
Battery-operated lights only, please. Power supplies are limited, so mains-powered lights cannot be accommodated.

🎄 Tree Collection

Please collect your tree during one of the following times:

Saturday 5 December, 3:30pm–4:30pm
Thursday 10 December, 12pm–3pm

Please ensure your tree is collected within one of these designated windows.

💚 Why Take Part?

Celebrate the festive season with our local community.
Showcase your business, school, club or organization.
Encourage creativity, teamwork and sustainable decorating.

Help create a festive attraction for locals and visitors.

📝 How to Enter

Registration is FREE, but you must register by Wednesday 25 November 2026.

Let's make this a wonderful celebration of local creativity, community pride and Christmas spirit.

✨ Bring your creativity. Share your Christmas spirit. Celebrate Ōtorohanga! ✨

🏆 Possible Award Categories

This event is not funded however there will be certificates and recognition for outstanding entries in categories including:

🎨 Most Creative Tree — the most imaginative and original design.

♻️ Best Use of Recycled or Repurposed Materials — celebrating sustainable ideas and creative reuse.

🥝 Best Kiwiana-Inspired Christmas Tree — showcasing our Kiwi identity and Ōtorohanga's proud Kiwiana heritage.

❤️ People's Favourite Overall Tree — the tree that captures the hearts of our visitors.

Get your ideas flowing and see what you and your team can create!

Tickets for good, not greed Humanitix dedicates 100% of profits from booking fees to charity

Host information

Ōtorohanga Creative Conduit

142 followers

Contact host

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Bringing creativity to our community via creative workshops, holiday workshops and special events, any profits made go back into subsidising future workshops. So support this local project by signing up to a workshop, liking/following the Ōtorohanga Creative Conduit Facebook page where you can tag/comment/share workshop posts or follow this host page to be notified about future workshops.

We are currently running workshops at either the Ōtorohanga Museum, 15 Kakamutu Road, Ōtorohanga or the Referee Rooms at the end of Rangipere Street Ōtorohanga.

In 2023 the Waipa Creative Conduit was piloted for 3 months in Te Awamutu, this lead to the formation of the Ōtorohanga Creative Conduit (ŌCC) which was established in 2024 and had a successful year operating under the umbrella of the Ōtorohanga District Development Board/Elevate until October 2024.

During that time the Ōtorohanga Creative Conduit offered 13 kids workshops including 2 clay workshops, tee printing, abstract art, creating a secret money box, led jar, watercolour artworks, felt tip creations, collage, silhouette art etc.

We ran 13 Adult/Teen classes ranging from 3 hours to 8 weeks. Workshops offered included photography, mahi raranga Maori weaving, pastel art, clay/pottery x 3, abstract art, movement therapy in Spanish, Tai Chi & art, vision boarding, drawing, pressed flowers, animation and life drawing.

Now in 2025 and going forward, the Ōtorohanga Creative Conduit is continuing to bring creativity to the community via workshops, events and exhibitions as a non-profit organization still run by Ōtorohanga artist and teacher, Rebecca Dowman-Ngapo.

The kaupapa of the Ōtorohanga Creative Conduit is to connect communities together, specifically the creative community with the larger community to build constructive relationships for creative people and create pathways to creativity for the community.

We believe creatives should be paid fairly for their skills so the workshops are priced to cover their hours, materials and venue and any extra made is then put back into the kete to reduce the costs of future workshops, to provide free places in some workshops or to put on free events for the community

Please follow this page to receive new workshop notifications and follow/like us on Facebook/Instagram and share or tag people in our posts to get more of our community informed and engaged.

Aroha nui

Rebecca - Creative Coordinator - Ōtorohanga Creative Conduit