Electric Avenue needs a ‘bigger park’: Sell-out festival sees demand for 20,000 more tickets
Monday, 17 February 2025
A sprawling village covering swathes of Christchurch’s Hagley Park North is nearly ready to welcome 70,000 festival-goers across two days this weekend.
But tens of thousands will miss out on Electric Avenue’s international line-up, judging by a still-growing waiting list of people wanting tickets.
“We would love to have a bigger park,” festival organiser Callam Mitchell laughed. “It’s been received remarkably well, far more so than we had anticipated.”
It is Electric Avenue’s 10th anniversary, and the first time it will span two days. Chase and Status, The Prodigy, Wilkinson, Fat Freddy’s Drop and L.A.B are just a handful among the international and local artists performing.
About 30,000 two-day passes sold within a few days of being made available on pre-sale, Mitchell said. As of Monday, a handful of $599 VIP tickets for Friday were all that remained.
“We’re over the moon. There’s demand for another 20,000 tickets,” he said. “We’ve still got to make sure we deliver a really good experience for everyone come Friday and Saturday, but it’s not too dissimilar in site set-up as it was last year, so we’re pretty confident.”
The site covers about 20 rugby pitches. There will be 600 portable toilets, 250m of bars and drink stations, and 35 food stalls. More than 300,000 reusable cups will be washed on site and 75% of waste will be diverted from landfill.
Mitchell said Electric Avenue was one of his favourite events to run, but also the riskiest. The event costs about $12 million to stage, including about $5.5m in artist fees, $3m in venue set up, $400,000 in bar infrastructure and staff, and $400,000 in security.
“They are big, scary numbers if you don’t sell enough tickets - that’s the nature of the business. It’s all just a big calculated risk. You hope it goes your way, and then you hope it doesn’t rain.”
Regional development agency ChristchurchNZ has invested financially in the festival again this year. It estimated last year’s Electric Avenue injected $6.3m of tourism dollars into the city, more than any other one-day event.
Running the festival was a full-time gig, Mitchell said, and he was already drafting budgets for 2026. Subject to feedback this year, he saw Electric Avenue remaining as a two-day festival but wanted to grow the site’s footprint.
“The more tickets we can sell, the bigger the budget we can spend on artists and arguably try and get some offers out there for some even bigger headline talent.”
There is a possibility the event could move to South Hagley Park to cater for 50,000 people a day.
But for this year, Mitchell advised people to get to the gates early, pace themselves and be mindful of residents living near the park.
“Now that we’re two days, it’s a marathon not a sprint.”
The gates open at 2pm on Friday and 1.30pm on Saturday. Occasional rain is expected to clear on Friday with a high of 19C, followed by 20C on a fine Saturday.