Tickets: $35.00 ($25 concession)
Includes a light supper. Cash bar open at intermission and following performance
Book sales and signing during intermission and following performance
Bookings iTICKET.co.nz

7.00pm Mihi
7.20pm Curnow Reader
7.45pm Sir Graeme Douglas Orator
8.20pm Supper
8.45pm Performance

The Curnow Reader: Serie Barford
Every year, in honour of Allen Curnow, a generous friend of the festival, Going West invites an established New Zealand poet to read. Curnow once wrote that by ‘simply sailing in a new direction you could enlarge the world’; and this year we celebrate the power of words to spread ideas and enlarge the world of those that read or hear them. The 2018 Curnow Reader is Serie Barford, a remarkable poet with deep ties to West Auckland and a long-standing connection with the Going West Writers Festival.

Sir Graeme Douglas Orator: Paula Morris
The keynote address of our opening night is named in honour of the late Sir Graeme Douglas, a long-time supporter of the Going West Festival, and whose family and estate continue that tradition in 2018. Every year, we invite a writer of note to engage with the festival theme on their own terms and in their own words. This year our Orator is Paula Morris, award-winning novelist, short story writer and essayist.

Performance by Tū
Tū is a compelling new multimedia collaboration between much-loved musician and songwriter Moana Maniapoto and electronic music producer Paddy Free. The duo mixes mōteatea/sung poetry with dub, chanting with drum and bass, English and te reo Māori. The performance at Going West will be the first time Tū perform in NZ after debuting in Finland and Taiwan. Tū play against a backdrop of video projections created by film-maker Toby Mills.