The New Zealand International Science Festival will drop its smaller Nanofest programme after this year, moving to a full-scale yearly event from 2027.
The shift is driven by unprecedented community demand and a rare total solar eclipse due to cast a shadow over Dunedin in 2028.
"From next year onwards, it is going to be a main year every year," Mr Cousins said.
The smaller iteration was born after the 2020 Covid-19 Alert Level 4 lockdown forced the cancellation of the main event.
"Then we left lockdown and that was the first Nanofest when we still brought something back, but it was smaller.
"We saw actually people really liked that, so though we didn’t have the capacity to go full year every year and we didn’t think that there was necessarily even the appetite, both from an event host perspective and the population audience perspective, to do something every year, we said ‘all right, we’ll do a big, small, big, small, big, small’, which has worked really well.
"But now the small keeps growing," Mr Cousins said.
Associate director Jenny Chandler said there was a lot of enthusiasm for a bigger festival annually.
"There has been more people that wanted to be involved than we sort of had the capacity for, which is super cool," Ms Chandler said.
The kaupapa of the festival was that science was accessible for everybody.
"It is present everywhere, you know, and getting it out of the just the laboratory and maybe the narrow mindset that people have about it so that it feels so that everybody can find something to relate to.
"If people don’t see themselves and their idea of science, they are not going to engage with it," Ms Chandler said.
The impending solar eclipse on Saturday, July 22, 2028, also heavily influenced the strategic plan.
"The solar eclipse is going to be such a big year that it would be silly to do something small when we have the opportunity to really do something big with the eclipse," Mr Cousins said.
Before the permanent switch, organisers are concentrating on delivering this year’s Nanofest, which features more than 60 interactive events covering a wide range of scientific themes, including technology and robotics, marine biology, astronomy and space science, anatomy, geology, botany, entomology, conservation and the intersection of art and science.
"We do try to have that variety both in terms of topic and age and interest," Mr Cousins said.
Highlights include a science rail journey featuring experiments in motion aided by or only possible because of being on a moving train.
"So lots of physics and momentum," he said.
Events will mainly be centred at the festival hub in the Wall St Mall.
There will also be shows and workshops taking place at Te Whare o Rukutia in Princes St, including New Zealand’s top Wikipedian Mike Dickison talking about "how to vandalise Wikipedia".
"He gives a lot of examples of times that Wikipedia has had attempted vandalism against it and how robust Wikipedia actually is with the way that it is structured.
"But lots of funny stories of things that people have tried to pull," Mr Cousins said.
Nanofest 2026
July 15- July 19
Visit scifest.org.nz for programme and tickets
