Christchurch Big Band Festival
Supporting jazz education and performance opportunities in Christchurch.
Canterbury
The Christchurch Big Band Festival works with the Christchurch Jazz Foundation Trust to support jazz education and opportunities in Christchurch.
The big event it supports is the annual Christchurch Big Band Festival, the only festival of its type in New Zealand. This attracts bands from all over NZ to share music with the public and with each other, and attracts International guests and bands. It creates opportunities for jazz education and workshops and performance opportunities for all ages, dance opportunities and joy of free Big Band music enlivening the streets of Christchurch as we celebrate and bring people to the newly developed areas in Christchurch CBD.
It also supports the Junior Jazz Jam, an annual jazz event for primary school jazz bands.
More about us
The Christchurch Jazz foundation Trust and Big Band Festival work hard at supporting jazz education and opportunities in Christchurch ranging from youth to community bands and players as well as bringing in top level players from outside ChCh. We have run 9 Big Band Festivals which features local bands as well as bands from around NZ. The trust also supports the ChCh Youth Jazz orchestra and the Junior Jazz Jam.
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Latest update
Christchurch Big Band Festival 2025 10 October 2025
Kia ora
We are excited to be running our 19th Christchurch Big Band Jazz Festival in from October 23rd to 27th.
Check out https://www.chchbigbandfest.com/ for programme details featuring 35 big bands over 5 days, and come along if you are in Christchurch!
There are loads of free gigs at Riverside Market, Fat Eddies, The Church Pub, the Arts Centre, A Rolling Stone and Court Theatre Gough Family Foyer. The Gala Concert features Symposium with Naomi Ferguson as MC and Tom Rainey on piano. The Big Band Boogie Ball will be in the beautiful Great Hall. There's workshops, a parade, and the weekend is capped off with the popular Botanic Gardens' Picnic.
Any donation will really help this year a lot, and we are also preparing for a special 20th anniversary festival next year! Thank you for your support - and hopefully see you at some events over Labour Weekend!
Ngā mihi nui
Judith Bell
Artist Director
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