From the hills to the beach, Ōtautahi Christchurch is filled with gems. When it comes to exciting events, the catalogue is pretty diverse and keeps getting bigger and better. If you want to spice up your schedule without straying too far from home, we’re putting a spotlight on the best the Garden City has to offer this year. So, what's on in Christchurch?
Here are the best events happening in Christchurch in 2025.
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What's On In Christchurch In 2025 - Ongoing
Christchurch Night Market
Friday & Saturday, Weekly | 10 Settlers Crescent, Ferrymead | Free
If you’ve got a pulse and a few taste buds, you probably love a good night market. Well, let us now introduce the Christchurch Night Market—going down on both Friday and Saturday every single week. This double-dose of late-night eats. Free to enter and obliged to binge, this fabulous market features over fifty vendors from around the world and a bunch of fun stuff for the kiddies. How’s that?
Friday Open Mic @ Embankment Tavern
Friday, Weekly | Embankment Tavern
How’s this for an incubator of homegrown talent? Embankment Tavern’s Friday Open Mic nights are a serious institution in the Cantabrian grassroots scene, offering a three to four-song slot with full stage access, a top PA, guitars, drums and amps for the next big acts on the block. From 7.30pm every Friday, a 9pm feature spot offers the chance to showcase what you’ve been cooking with a paid 45-minute set. For the less get up on stage and blast it kind of people (most of us), Embankment is THE place to relax, have a good time and enjoy some decent music. So get down there.
What's On In Christchurch In June 2025
Doc Edge Film Festival
25 June-25 August | Various locations
If documentaries are your schtick you’ll want to deep dive into this year’s Doc Edge Festival which, this year, is celebrating it's 20th anniversary. Always packed with high calibre films from Aotearoa and around the world, plus immersive exhibitions, industry events, and a schools programme, Doc Edge is essential viewing.
What's On In Christchurch In July 2025
NZ Opera—La Bohème: A Winter’s Tale Of Love & Loss with Christchurch Symphony Orchestra
2, 4 & 6 July | Isaac Theatre Royal | $$-$$$
Image credit: Andi Crown Photography | Instagram
NZ Opera have dropped a certified classique on us, and I’m more than ready to shed a tear from the unparalleled comfort of those iconic red seats. Set in post-war Paris, international director Bruno Ravella has stripped things back with his powerful take on Puccini’s gut-wrenching masterpiece La bohème. Pop down to Isaac Royal Theatre on either 2, 4 or 6 July (or all three if you’re a fiend) to catch cast stacked with international stars alongside antipodean powerhouses. It’s a strictly limited sessions typa operation. Tissues recommended, emotional devastation guaranteed.
What's On In Christchurch In August 2025
Home, Land And Sea
8-9 August | Isaac Theatre Royal | $$-$$$
Home, Land and Sea is as stunning an example of ballet as you'll ever see, and for the first time ever brings together dancers from both The Royal New Zealand Ballet AND The New Zealand Dance Company. Best described as “a poetic response to Aotearoa’s complex history, our evolving national identity and the ongoing search for belonging,” by its choreographer, acclaimed NZDC artistic director Moss Te Ururangi Patterson, it also features two additional works-of-dance (Chrysalis, and The Way Alone).
Disney On Ice Presents Find Your Hero
15-17 August | Wolfbrook Arena | $$-$$$
Image credit: Disney On Ice | Supplied
If you've never experienced the magic that is Disney On Ice, now's your moment. Bringing its wholesome brand of family goodness to the rink for yet another year, 2025's production features the breathtaking re-telling of three of Disney's most iconic films—Encanto, Moana, and of course, the suitably cool Frozen—plus tales from the OG Dis kids Mickey and Minne, and more.
What's On In Christchurch In September 2025
The Monster In The Maze
5-6 September | Isaac Theatre Royal | $$
Fellow Classical Studies nerds will be all over this operatic re-telling of the Minotaur myth (or as I like to call it, the OG Maze Runner). Bought to life by an all-Kiwi cast and the Christchurch Symphony Orchestra, this internationally acclaimed community opera is giving big, bold monster energy and better yet, it's performed entirely in English.
What's On In Christchurch In October 2025
Faulty Towers The Dining Experience
8-9 October | Rydges Latimer | $$$
Anyone who grew up watching Fawlty Towers, raise your hand. Ditto—which means I'm amped to see the famous John Cleese-led series bought to life through this one-of-a-kind, comedy-meets-cuisine experience. Following on from a hugely successful season in 2024, audiences can expect a side-splitting, fully immersive improv show complete with '70s-style dinner. Lessshgo.
What's On In Christchurch In November 2025
Sharon Van Etten & The Attachment Theory
27 November | Isaac Theatre Royal | $$$
American singer/songwriter Sharon Van Etten is set to rock Canterbury this November and for the first time ever with her very own band, The Attachment Theory (who join her on her seventh and latest album). As such, you can expect a slightly different but no less incredible sound from the artist whose haunting vocals had a starring role in Yellowjackets. The group are also set to headline The Others Way 2025 festival in Auckland, later in the month.
Fuel your night out at the best restaurants in Christchurch.
Main image credit: Electric Avenue | Instagram
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