Events & Events sponsorship

Events play a key role in creating a vibrant, urban CBD environment and drive social and economic benefits. We are therefore focused on creating, developing and supporting city based events, that will bring people into the city, and profile some of the great businesses we have in the CBD.

Heart of the City Events

Over the coming year our event focus is on four major pillars of the city offering - Dining, Fashion, Nightlife, Art/Culture plus Christmas. This allows us to focus on finding specific opportunities to promote and have participation from a range of our business membership.

Auckland Restaurant Month 2011

Held in August 2011, the inaugural Auckland Restaurant Month featured more than 60 participating restaurants. It aimed to raise awareness of the great restaurants in the central city and get Aucklanders to dine out over the traditionally quieter winter months. There was a fantastic interest from the media, particpants and from Aucklanders, with over 83,000 'Restaurant Month' pages viewed on the BIG little City website in three weeks.

The event was supported by a marketing and PR plan that included Television Ads, a NZ Herald magazine, along with a consumer prize to New York City Restaurant Week, generating more than 6000 entries.

Christmas 2011

The biggest month in the retail calendar year is December, and in 2012, we made Auckland CBD the home of Christmas and a place for all Aucklanders to come together to celebrate.

Here is what we did:

Theming of Queen St - Banners and Spirals joined by Santa, presents and his reindeer on the Whitcoulls Building
Lights in Durham Lane and new decorations in High Street
The addition of banners in Aotea Square plus the 3 baubles and Santa's post box
Angels in Elliott Street and on K'Road
KZ1 Maritime Tree with baubles and lights
Street banners in Britomart & Quay Street
Random Acts of Christmas & Christmas in the Square - a programme of free performances throughout the month of December to entertain and delight all visitors to the city centre.

Fashion Festival 2012

Fashion Festival (24 February to 4 March 2012) is the opportunity for Fashion to be celebrated on the streets, and for people to come in to enjoy the city's great fashion offering. We will be working with the Fashion Festival to develop a programme of activities in the city, with a strong focus on Saturday 3 March 2012.

Fashion in the BIG little City

If you are interested in getting involved with Fashion Festival 2012, please download our brochure for more information here (PDF, 2MB).

Opportunities to Advertise Your Business

The ninth BIG little City Supplement, will be available in the NZ Herald on Thursday 23 February 2012 and will be distributed to 579,000 readers. You can now download a PDF which contains advertising rates and booking deadlines here...(PDF, 738KB)

Event Sponsorship

Heart of the City is a direct supporter of many city based events through sponsorship and assistance including The Auckland Arts Festival, Auckland Comedy Festival, Farmers Santa Parade, the High Street Long Lunch, the Auckland Seafood Festival, The International Buskers Festival and many others.

If you are organising an event and are looking for support and sponsorship, we have developed a set of guidelines to help understand our Events Sponsorship.

> Download our Events Sponsorship Guidelines <

> Download the Events Sponsorship Application form <