January

New Zealand gets set for another year. Great weather, cricket season in full swing and happy holidays for the locals.

Festival of Lights

New Plymouth’s Pukekura Park is regularly plastered with adjectives like ‘jewel’ and ‘gem’, but the gardens really sparkle during this festival (www.festivaloflights.co.nz). It’s a magical scene: pathways glow and trees are impressively lit with thousands of lights. Live music, dance and kids’ performances too.

World Buskers Festival

Christchurch hosts a gaggle of jugglers, musos, tricksters, puppeteers, mime artists and dancers, performing throughout this 10-day summertime festival (www.worldbuskersfestival.com). Shoulder into the crowd, see who’s making a scene in the middle and maybe leave a few dollars. Avoid if you’re scared of audience participation.

February

The sun is shining, the kids are back at school, and the sav blanc is chillin’: this is prime party time across NZ. Book your festival tickets (and beds) in advance.

Waitangi Day

On 6 February 1840 the Treaty of Waitangi (www.nzhistory.net.nz) was first signed between Maori and the British Crown. The day remains a public holiday across NZ, but in Waitangi itself (the Bay of Islands) there’s a lot happening: guided tours, concerts, market stalls and family entertainment.

Marlborough Wine & Food Festival

NZ’s biggest and best wine festival (www.wine-marlborough-festival.co.nz) features tastings from around 50 Marlborough wineries (also NZ’s biggest and best), plus fine food and entertainment. The mandatory over-indulgence usually happens on a Saturday early in the month. Keep quiet if you don’t like sauvignon blanc…

New Zealand Festival

Feeling artsy? This month-long spectacular (www.fest­ival.co.nz) happens in Wellington in February–March every even-numbered year, and is sure to spark your imagination. NZ’s cultural capital exudes artistic enthusiasm with theatre, dance, music, writing and visual arts. International acts aplenty.

Fringe NZ

Music, theatre, comedy, dance, visual arts…but not the mainstream stuff that makes it into the New Zealand Festival. These are the fringe-dwelling, unusual, emerging, controversial, low-budget and/or downright weird acts that don’t seem to fit in anywhere else (www.fringe.co.nz). Great stuff!

Art Deco Weekend

In the third week of February, Napier, levelled by an earthquake in 1931 and ­rebuilt in high art-deco style, celebrates its architectural heritage with this high-steppin’ fiesta (www.artdeconapier.com), featuring music, food, wine, vintage cars and costumery.

Splore

Explore Splore (www.splore.net), a cutting-edge, three-day outdoor summer fest in Tapapakanga Regional Park on the Coromandel Peninsula. Contemporary live music, ­performance, visual arts, safe swimming, pohutukawa trees… If we were feeling parental, we’d tell you to take sunscreen, a hat and a water bottle.

Wellington Sevens

Yeah, we know, it’s not rugby season, but February sees the world’s top seven-a-side rugby teams crack heads in Wellington (www.sevens.co.nz) as part of the HSBC Sevens World Series: everyone from stalwarts like Australia, NZ and South Africa to minnows like the Cook Islands, Kenya and Canada. A great excuse for a party.

March

March brings a hint of autumn, harvest time in the vineyards and orchards (great if you need work), long dusky evenings and plenty of festivals plumping out the calendar. Locals unwind post-tourist season.

Te Matatini National Kapa Haka Festival

This Maori haka (war dance) competition (www.tematatini.co.nz) ­happens in early March in odd-numbered years: much gesticulation, eye-bulging and tongue extension. Venues vary: 2015 will be Christ­church. And it’s not just the haka: expect traditional song, dance, storytelling and other performing arts.

BikeFest Lake Taupo

Feeling fit? Try racing a bicycle 160km around Lake Taupo and then talk to us… In the week prior to the big race, BikeFest (www.bikefest.co.nz) celebrates all things bicycular: BMX, mountain bike, unicycle, tandem – whatever your preferred conveyance, you’ll find someone who’s into it.

Wildfoods Festival

Eat worms, hare testicles or crabs at Hokitika’s comfort-zone-challenging food fest (www.wildfoods.co.nz). Not for the mild-mannered or weak-stomached… But even if you are, it’s still fun to watch! There are usually plenty of quality NZ brews available, too, which help subdue any difficult tastes.

WOMAD

Local and international music, arts and dance performances fill New Plymouth’s Bowl of Brooklands to overflowing (www.womad.co.nz). An evolution of the original world-music festival dreamed up by ­Peter Gabriel, who launched the inaugural UK concert in 1990. Perfect for families (usually not too loud).

Pasifika Festival

With upwards of 140,000 Maori and notable communities of Tongans, Samoans, Cook Islanders, Niueans, Fijians and other South Pacific Islanders, Auckland has the largest Polynesian community in the world. These vibrant island cultures come together at this annual fiesta (www.aucklandcouncil.govt.nz) in Western Springs Park.

April

April is when canny travellers hit NZ: the ocean is still swimmable and the weather still mild, with nary a tourist or queue in sight (…other than during Easter, when there’s pricey accommodation everywhere).

National Jazz Festival

Every Easter, Tauranga hosts the longest-running jazz fest (www.jazz.org.nz) in the southern hemisphere. The line-up is invariably impressive (Kurt Elling, Keb Mo), and there’s plenty of fine NZ food and wine to accompany the finger-snappin’ za-bah-de-dah sonics.

May

The nostalgia of autumn runs deep: party nights are long gone and another chilly Kiwi winter beckons. Thank goodness for the Comedy Festival! Last chance to explore Fiordland and Southland in reasonable weather. Farmers markets overflow.

Bluff Oyster & Food Festival

Bluff and oysters go together like, well, like a bivalve. Truck down to the deep south for some slippery, salty specimens (www.bluff­oysterfest.co.nz). It’s chilly down here in May, but the live music and oyster eating/opening competitions warm everybody up.

New Zealand International Comedy Festival

Three-week laugh-fest (www.comedyfestival.co.nz) with venues across Auckland, Wellington and various regional centres: Whangarei to Invercargill with all the mid-sized cities in between. International gag-merchants (Arj Barker, Danny Bhoy) line up next to home-grown talent (anyone seen that Jermaine Clement guy lately?).

June

Time to head south: it’s ski season! Queenstown and Wanaka hit their stride. For everyone else, head north: the Bay of Plenty is always sunny, and is it just us, or is Northland underrated?

Matariki

Maori New Year is heralded by the rise of Matariki (aka Pleiades star cluster) in May and the sighting of the new moon in June. Three days of remembrance, education, music, film, community days and tree planting take place, mainly around Auckland and Northland (www.teara.govt.nz/en/matariki-maori-new-year).

New Zealand Gold Guitar Awards

We like both kinds of music: country and western! These awards (www.goldguitars.co.nz) in chilly Gore cap off a week of ever-lovin’ country twang and boot-scootin’ good times, with plenty of concerts and buskers.

July

Wellington’s good citizens clutch collars, shiver and hang out in bookshops: Auckland doesn’t seem so bad now, eh? Ski season slides on: hit Mt Ruapehu on the North Island if Queenstown is overcrowded.

Queenstown Winter Festival

This southern snow-fest (www.winterfestival.co.nz) has been running since 1975, and now attracts around 45,000 snow bunnies. It’s a 10-day party, studded with fireworks, jazz, street parades, comedy, a Mardi Gras, a masquerade ball and lots of snow-centric activities on the mountain slopes.

New Zealand International Film Festival

After separate film festivals (www.nzff.co.nz) in Wellington, Auckland, Dunedin and Christchurch, a selection of flicks hits the road for screenings in regional towns from July to November (film buffs in Gore and Masterton get positively orgasmic at the prospect).

Russell Birdman

Birdman rallies are just so ’80s…but they sure are funny! This one in Russell (www.russellbirdman.co.nz) features the usual cast of costumed contenders propelling themselves off a jetty in pursuit of weightlessness. Bonus points if your name is Russell.

August

Land a good deal on accommodation pretty much anywhere except the ski towns. Winter is almost spent, but there’s not much happening outside: music and art are your saviours…or watch some rugby!

Taranaki International Arts Festival

Beneath the snowy slopes of Mt Taranaki, August used to be a time of quiet repose and reconstitution. Not anymore: this whizz-bang arts festival (www.taft.co.nz/artsfest) now shakes the winter from the city (New Plymouth) with music, theatre, dance, visual arts and parades.

Bay of Islands Jazz & Blues Festival

You might think that the Bay of Islands is all about sunning yourself on a yacht while dolphins splash saltwater on your stomach. And you’d be right. But in the depths of winter, this jazzy little festival (www.jazz-blues.co.nz) will give you something else to do.

September

Spring is sprung. The amazing and surprising World of WearableArt Award Show is always a hit. And will someone please beat Canterbury in the annual ITM rugby cup final?

World of WearableArt Award Show

A bizarre (in the best possible way) two-week Wellington event (www.worldofwearableart.com) featuring amazing hand-crafted garments. Entries from the show are displayed at the World of WearableArt & Classic Cars Museum in Nelson after the event (Cadillacs and corsetry?). Sometimes spills over into October.

Wanganui Festival of Glass

Whanganui has earned its artistic stripes as a centre for gorgeous glass, myriad local artists and workshops gearing up for this classy glassy fest in September (www.wanganuiglass.co.nz). Expect lots of ‘how-to’ demonstrations, exhib­itions and open studios.

Auckland Boat Show

Auckland harbour blooms with sails and churns with outboard motors (www.auckland-boatshow.com). It doesn’t command the instant nautical recognition of Sydney or San Diego, but Auckland really is one of the world’s great sailing cities. And here’s proof.

October

Post-rugby and pre-cricket, sports fans twiddle their thumbs: a trip to Kaikoura, perhaps? Around the rest of NZ October is ‘shoulder season’ – reasonable accommodation rates, minimal crowds and no competition for the good campsites.

Nelson Arts Festival

Sure, Nelson is distractingly sunny, but that doesn’t mean the artsy good stuff isn’t happening inside and out. Get a taste of the local output over two weeks in October (www.nelsonfest­ivals.co.nz).

Kaikoura Seafest

Kaikoura is a town built on crayfish. Well, not literally, but there sure are plenty of crustaceans in the sea here, many of which find themselves on plates during Seafest (www.seafest.co.nz). Also a great excuse to drink a lot and dance around.

November

Across Northland, the Coromandel Peninsula, the Bay of Plenty and the East Coast, NZ’s iconic pohutukawa trees erupt with brilliant crimson blooms. The weather is picking up, and a few tourists are starting to arrive.

Toast Martinborough

Bound for a day of boozy indulgence, wine-swilling Wellingtonians head over Rimutaka Hill and roll into upmarket Martinborough (www.toastmartinborough.co.nz). The Wairarapa region produces some seriously good pinot noir: don’t go home without trying some (…as if you’d be so silly).

Oamaru Victorian Heritage Celebrations

Ahhh, the good old days… When Queen Vic sat dourly on the throne, when hems were low, collars were high, and civic decency was a matter of course. Old Oamaru thoroughly enjoys this tongue-in-cheek historic homage in November (www.historicoamaru.co.nz): dress-ups, penny-farthing races, choirs, guided tours etc.

Pohutukawa Festival

A week of markets, picnics, live music, kite-flying, cruises, snorkelling and poetry on the Coromandel Peninsula. It’s all very clean-living and above-board, but not everything has to be about drinking, dancing and decadence. And just look at those pohutukawa trees (www.pohutukawafestival.co.nz). Sometimes strays into early December.

December

Summertime! The crack of leather on willow resounds across the nation’s cricket pitches, and office workers surge towards the finish line. Everyone gears up for Christmas: avoid shopping centres like the plague.

Rhythm & Vines

Wine, music and song (all the good things) in sunny east-coast Gisborne on New Year’s Eve (www.rhythmandvines.co.nz). Top DJs, hip-hop acts, bands and singer-songwriters compete for your attention. Or maybe you’d rather just drink some chardonnay and kiss someone on the beach.