The 5th Annual Revitalize 3-day festival rocks into action on Tuesday 2nd January at 2pm.

It’s an Organic Farm Healing Music Festival on from January 2nd to 4th 2024, beside the magical “Mangapiri Mountains.”

This year, the focus is on music with not only the traditional Open Mic session, but also Join Jammin’ Groups on the final day, and a children’s concert. In addition, there are music workshops in the form of guitar tuning using a Celtic method by Brad Macclure, Singing in Parts by Anna Van Riel, Harmonica by King Leo and we hope workshops on belly dancing , song writing, which are still being finalised. So bring your acoustic instruments such as guitars, harmonicas and/or percussion instruments.

All of this is in addition to two distinct concerts, Tuesday night and Wednesday from midday till late. Julian Temple Band will be headline act on the Tuesday evening, together with the very popular Left or Right, The Entire Alphabet, and international band Todd’s Tribe, plus others. We also have two confirmed Open Mic bands and presumably one or two amateurs on the night will come forward.

On Wednesday, the festival kicks off at 9am with the traditional grounding ceremony and other activities such as bouncy castle, face painting, farming walk and talks, electric vehicle displays, poetry performance, and landscaping & permaculture talk. At midday the main concert begins. We will ease into the big acts with a solid line-up of 10 supporting performers. By evening our headline acts will take the stage. They are international artists Helena & Le Feel, and Southlander Sam Cullen and his band.

Sam Cullen is well known locally and although he is currently making it in the big smoke of Auckland, we’re lucky that he is visiting Southland over the summer.  

Helena & Le Feel are made up of Australians Helena Kitley and Sam Rush, Bruce Whetstone from Canada and drummer Lee Rothstein from the USA. Kitley has been writing music from a young age, growing up in Coonabarabran, and set about performing her original music after settling in Newcastle, NSW.

Helena Kitley certainly is one petite powerhouse of a woman, and we are also fortunate to have two other super strong female voices in Saelyn Guyton of Soulfish, and Anna Van Riel.

Other artists of note who have performed at Revitalize before are King Leo who was very well received in 2022, Carla Ladstaetter who since last year has moved to Christchurch and co-starred in two musicals, Brad Macclure and Ruby Fusion. Cris from Ruby Fusion is bringing his entire band this year.

New acts to look out for at Revitalize are singer/songwriter Aart Smith playing on the main stage and children’s entertainer Rainbow Rosalind The Fairy, who has a popular TV show ‘Code Fun’ on TV2 weekday mornings with her robot sidekick, Digi.

We are also proud to announce a new collab of artists calling themselves “Todd’s Tribe” — a Todd Rundgren tribute band who met, played together, and excelled at Toddstock ’75. There are rumours around town that Mr Rundgren himself may be coming to Revitalize in 2025, but we are not confirming anything yet. You’ll have to wait and see.

We were saddened to hear that our main food truck is no longer in business. After a mad rush to find a replacement, we had a lot of positive replies from the local foodies. We are happy to say Festivalgoers will be able to purchase food again on site, with new options such as Hāngī, seafood, butter chicken and cacao. We also have basic cooking facilities for campers.

Other improvements this year are an outdoor shower for campers and free Starlink wi-fi around the festival site. Camping is again free this year provided you have a 3-day pass, and children 12 and under are still free provided they come with a paid adult.  With a full price 3-day ticket costing just $177, this really must be one of the cheapest festivals in NZ, especially if you are camping.

The Revitalize festival is held at the Mangapiri Downs Organic Studfarm, 2576 Clifden-Blackmount Road, Blackmount, West Southland.

$177 3-day and $75 single day tickets are still available at Humanatix and Under The Radar until 11:50pm NZDT on 26th December 2023 and then the price will rise. Go to https://events.humanitix.com/revitalize-music-festival-2024 There will be limited gate sales which will cost $199/3-day. 

Go to www.revitalize.nz for more details.