Engaging with Queenstown audiences is one of the goals the board members of the Wanaka based Southern Lakes Festival of Colour have set themselves.
The Queenstown programme has expanded each time the festival has been held and reached a peak, in terms of quality and quantity of performances, in April this year with national-calibre shows
in the Queenstown Memorial Centre.
Director Philip Tremewan said the Festival of Colour was ''an exemplar'' for regional festivals around the country, after the board met in the Lake Wanaka Centre last week.
''Our audiences enjoy top-quality, live performances, work that warms the heart and plumbs some depths of character and theme and feeling and does it with real craft and artistry,'' Mr Tremewan said.
''We also believe heartland New Zealand audiences should have the excitement of premieres and the unveiling of new work and this shouldn't be the preserve of Wellington and Auckland.''
Mr Tremewan and chairwoman Hetty van Hale reaffirmed the festival's determination to bring the best of the arts, including world premieres, to the Southern Lakes from within New Zealand and around the world.
They outlined plans for an off-year programme in 2014, including special performances and a ''festival of ideas'' based on the main programme's popular Aspiring Conversations sessions.
• The festival next supports alternative Christchurch four-piece indie band Lawrence Arabia in the Gin & Raspberry, Wanaka, on November 7, as part of its first nationwide tour outside the four main centres.
Tickets cost $25 from the festival website.
• The Southern Lakes Festival of Colour returns for the sixth time from April 21-26, 2015.
