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The twenty-sixth Pasifika Festival will be held in Western Spring Park, Auckland, New Zealand, from 24 to 25 March 2018. The festival is organized by Auckland Tourism, Events and Economic Development (ATEED) on behalf of the Auckland Council and in partnership with the Pasifika Festival Village Coordinators who represent the different communities and guide the cultural integrity of the festival.

As one of Auckland’s four major cultural festivals—along with the Auckland Lantern Festival, Tamaki Heritage Waka Festival, and Auckland Diwali Festival—it is expected to attract tens of thousands of Aucklanders and visitors. This year, the festival features earth oven cooking and marriage traditions, and rare traditional tattoos of the Pacific Islands as well as hundreds of local and international performers and artists.

The twenty-sixth festival showcases cultural heritage in a similar format the last year’s. There are also eleven different villages, each representing the Cook Islands, Fiji, Niue, Aotearoa, Hawaii, Kiribati, Samoa, Tahiti, Tuvalu, Tonga, and Tokelau. And each village has its own performance stage and market stalls selling signature dishes and crafts unique to the village’s culture.

The festival is open to public with lots of free activities and live entertainment. There are food, craft, and retail stalls where festival-goers can buy authentic food, clothing, traditional arts and crafts, skin care products, other novelties, and souvenirs from the festival. Pasifika offers the chance to revel in the sights, sounds, and flavors of the South Pacific and to gain insight into traditional practices across various cultures. You can learn more about the festival on organizer's website.