Extra Show + More Artists Announced For Milk & Honey Festival 2019

The inaugural Milk & Honey Festival is celebrating International Women's Day in venues across Aoteoroa this March, with a dazzling female-led lineup already announced featuring Bic Runga, Tami Neilson, Nadia Reid, Julia Deans, carb on carb, Wax Chattels and lots more. Organisers Lani Purkis (Elemeno P) and Teresa Patterson have now revealed a special Queenstown event will also take place as part of the landmark multi-city festival, staged simultaneously in Auckland, Wellington and Christchurch. They've also announced even more acts will be performing, with industrial-pop artist October joining the lineup for Auckland's Whammy Bar / Wine Cellar mega-show, and award-winning indie-folk songwriter Mel Parsons and Canadian folk artist Dana Sipos playing at Queenstown's Sherwood. Scope out the updated info here...

Milk & Honey Festival
International Women's Day - Friday 8th March

Powerstation, Auckland - Tami Neilson, Nadia Reid, Julia Deans, Ria Hall and Sandy Mill (DJ)

Whammy Bar / Wine Cellar, Auckland - carb on carb, CHAII, Cheshire Grimm, Dead Little Penny, HEX, LEXXA, October, Randa, Sami Sisters, Tooms, Wax Chattels, Valkyrie

121 Club, Wellington - Alexa Casino (DJ), Half Queen , Peach Milk , Amy Jean, curated by Moments 

Blue Smoke, Christchurch - Bic Runga, French Concession

Sherwood, Queenstown - Mel Parsons, Dana Sipos (Canada)

Check out the clip for Mel Parsons' 'Just 'Cause You Don't Want Me', from her new album Glass Heart...

Watch the vivid video for October's '1000 Eyes'...

Press release:

To celebrate International Women’s Day in 2019, over twenty of Aotearoa’s finest female artists are gathering across three cities to perform a series of shows on Friday March 8th.

The team behind Milk and Honey are Lani Purkis and Teresa Patterson. The two have a wealth of music industry experience between them, from management, promotion, and booking, to performing, teaching, and mentoring.

While working on other projects over the past 12 months, they began thinking about how wonderful it would be to create a series of shows where the majority of musicians and crew were women, and decided it was the perfect goal for International Women’s Day 2019.

They have three key aims: To celebrate the incredibly talented women who work in all facets of the New Zealand music industry; To make female artists and crew visible to younger women, and encourage them to see many different possible roles they could find for themselves in the music industry; To provide a safe, inclusive, respectful festival and gig environment.

“We really wanted to create something where younger girls and women have someone to look up to and aspire to, and something where women are very clearly visible in all parts of the event.”

Tami Neilson states: “I'm so excited to be part of the inaugural Milk & Honey Festival. We're going to blast the roof off The Powerstation with this powerhouse line-up! What a way to celebrate International Women's Day.”

The Sami Sisters agree: "We are super pumped to be part of Milk & Honey! It's been a while since we played and we couldn't be more excited to take part in this festival celebrating our wāhine toa on International Women's Day."