Friends & Whanau Festival

Overview

If you've been humming and hawing about buying that top you walk past every morning — forget it, here's something you can better spend your $40 on.

The Friends & Whānau Festival may sound like a picnic, but it's more of a banger. Providing a safe space for people to come together to dance and enjoy quality music, the organisers have nabbed the new and expensively classy Mantells on the Water. This rager of a party is not only going to have the best acoustics in all of Auckland for one night only, it'll also be close to public transport.

So the spot sounds great, but who are the acts? Well, for the first Friends & Whānau Festival ever, patrons can prepare to step back and feel a little nostalgic. A little bit of Che Fu anyone? That's right, the man holding two platinum records, two gold records and a Silver Scroll will be headlining your next favourite festival beside the water.

And joining him? Manny Styles. Auckland's favourite DJ since…forever, Manny's a machine on the turntables, a guy who knows how to blend his hip hop and his jazz seamlessly and he's even toured with OMC. A true part of Kiwi music history — his four B-Net awards should let you know you'll be in for a good night.

If the Friends & Whānau Festival sounds like an evening you just can't miss, get in quick for a ticket — both the early bird and first release have sold out. For a night celebrating the cultural diversity and musical genres of Aotearoa, head to the Friends & Whānau Festival on Saturday, 27 April.