Christmas in the Heart of the City

Christmas has arrived in the city centre, with the work of many people culminating in a festive and beautiful assortment of lighting, decorations and activations.

The newest of these, and a particular highlight this year, are the Queen Street lights, which were turned on for the first time on Thursday evening. Created by HOTCity member business Fresh Concept after the project was put out for pitch earlier in the year, the new lights are modern, unique and lend a great sense of Christmas to the heart of the city’s main drag. You can check out an interview about the lights with Angus Muir from Fresh Concept here on stuff.co.nz.

Image: Jeremy Toth

As well as the Queen Street lights, a stroll around the central city this month will reveal High Street’s paper chains, Durham Street’s doves and lights, Elliott Street’s angels, Aotea Square’s giant baubles and Santa’s post box, Resene presents scattered throughout the city and of course the iconic Santa and his reindeer on Whitcoulls corner.

A peek at the city’s Christmas events calendar shows that the seasonal offering in the area is second to none. There’s more than 2 weeks of free performing arts events and markets taking place in Aotea Square with Unwrapping Christmas, an incredible 12 metre high Advent Calendar has been installed in Wynyard Quarter, with a new window being revealed each day, and there’s a huge number of concerts, plays and shopping events making the city the place to be this December.

This is the biggest time of the year for retailers, and we're supporting the sector with our tactical promotion, Christmas Cracker Deals. Our bumper edition of VIVA in the New Zealand Herald will be hitting the stands on 12 December, featuring highlights of the Heart of the City Christmas experience, and our digital and print advertising campaign is in market now.

HOTCity has long championed Christmas in the central city, and it’s wonderful that we’ve received buy-in and contributions this year from parties including the CBD Board (with a contribution from the targeted rate, which is paid by local businesses) and THE EDGE, who’ve made decorating and activating Aotea Square possible. Christmas is an expensive proposition, and the central city is a large area to ‘dress’, so we really do depend on all stakeholders seeing this as being important and acting accordingly.

Happy Christmas to you all!