Nothing! Listing your profile, creative space or event on Te Wāhi Toi is completely free thanks to our incredible supporters.

There are plenty of reasons to join our creative directory, here are just a few.

1. Discover and connect with like-minded local creatives. Collaborate, support and learn with your community. 
   
2. Free of charge promotion!
   
3. Through our personalised feeds and newsletters, we'll help you target the right audience and get your listing in front of the right eyes. 
   
4. Build your web presence on a search engine optimised platform. 
   
5. Experience an inclusive, carefully curated platform thoughtfully designed for the enjoyment and ease of all users. 
   
6. Benefit from free support to get you up and running . We provide education sessions and one-on-one support where necessary, so you can put your best foot forward. 

Te Wāhi Toi’s most important goal is to be inclusive. We welcome those from every aspect of the arts and cultural community in and around Queenstown and Wānaka. We wholeheartedly invite you to contribute if you are an individual, or represent a community group or business that is involved in our district’s vibrant arts and culture scene via:

Art Object
Design
Music
Performing Arts
Photography / Film
Visual Arts

Written / Spoken 

We encourage you to join the community whether you are a professional, part-timer, business, hobbyist or complete beginner.

For the Creative Directory, contributors will need:

• Listing title
  
  • Less than 70 characters
  • Should include the most obvious phrase that people will use in a Google search
• Listing text introducing yourself and your practise.
  
  • Intro paragraph - between 150 and 170 characters
  • Body copy - roughly 200 words (including intro paragraph)
• Email address
  
• Phone number
  
• At least one photo
  
  • 955 pixels x 750 pixels
  • .jpg file or .png
  • Below 150 KB is an ideal size
  • Centre most important content both horizontally and vertically

We want you! Please contact us if you’d like to participate but need some support to collate these files

Although not compulsory, these additional items will help to give your listing maximum exposure:

• Video or gif. link
• Physical address
• Website address
• Online shop link
• Social media links

For Event listings, contributors will need:

• Listing title
  
  • Less than 70 characters
  • Should include the most obvious phrase that people will use in a Google search
• Listing text outlining the event.
  
  • Intro paragraph - between 150 and 170 characters
  • Body copy - roughly 200 words (including intro paragraph)
• At least one photo
  
  • 955 pixels x 750 pixels
  • .jpg file or .png
  • Below 150 KB is an ideal size
  • Centre most important content both horizontally and vertically
• Dates
• Times
• Event address (or online)
• Event email address
• Ticket prices (or free of charge)
• Link for tickets

For Find a space listings, contributors will need:

• Listing title
  
  • Less than 70 characters
  • Should include the most obvious phrase that people will use in a Google search
• Listing text outlining the event.
  
  • Intro paragraph - between 150 and 170 characters
  • Body copy - roughly 200 words (including intro paragraph)
• At least one photo
  
  • 955 pixels x 750 pixels
  • .jpg file or .png
  • Below 150 KB is an ideal size
  • Centre most important content both horizontally and vertically
• Hours
• Address
• Email
• Rental Prices (or free of charge)

It only takes a few minutes to sign up, then you’ll need to complete a listing. How long it takes to complete your listing will depend on whether or not you have your images and copy ready to go. Here’s the process:

• First, sign up to become a portal user (2 minutes)
• Then sign up to become a contributor (1 minute)
• Complete the listing form and press “Submit” (you can save a draft listing to return to later)
• The curator will review your listing within three business days
• The curator will make direct contact if extra information or edits are needed
• Once finalised, the curator publishes your listing and it will be live within 10 minutes.

Here are a few tips to make your creative listing stand out: 

1. Use High-Quality Images.

You're putting your work on display to showcase its quality, so make sure your images accurately represent your offerings. A professional photographer is recommended, but if that is not an option, use the best camera can you can your hands on. Make sure that your work is well-framed, and the photo is taken straight on and in natural light.

2. Write a strong bio.

Write your bio as if you were explaining you qualifications, passion and work to a friend. Highlight your strengths, list any achievements, and explain exactly what it is you're interested in and can offer. Make sure your spelling and grammar is correct, too!

3. Fill out as many details as possible. 

A fleshed out profile makes it easy for people to find you, your work, and what you have to offer. Make sure to include as many details as possible - don't do just the bare minimum. 

For more tips, you can check out this article on how to create a strong artist profile. 

Te Wāhi Toi’s search functionality is designed to help users find specific results or simply have a browse of what’s on offer. It does this by offering broad categories as well as more refined tags. The broad categories help users explore and discover general areas of arts and culture, and ensure no zero results are returned.

Within these broad categories, users can also refine their search by selecting a tag or typing a keyword. This helps users find specific disciplines.

For example, Visual Arts is a category, and Sculpture is a tag that sits within Visual Arts. A user might also type “sculptor” into the keyword search so it’s important to make sure that you’ve referenced this in your listing copy.

We recommend you find a category that is as close as possible to your field. A curator checks all listings before they are published on the directory and will spot anything that may not look right.

If you can’t find anything to fit your field of creative work, please email the Te Wāhi Toi curator.

Art Object >

Ceramics & Glass,  Furniture,  Jewellery,  Textiles & Weaving,  Kā Toi Māori and more.

Design >

Animation, Architecture, Fashion, Graphic, Kā Toi Māori and more.

Music >

Classical, Contemporary, Jazz, Kā Toi Māori and more.

Performing Arts >

Acrobatics, Comedy, Dance, Theatre/Drama, Kā Toi Māori and more.

Photography / Film >

Art, Commercial, Photography, Videography, Kā Toi Māori and more.

Visual Arts >

Fine Art, Illustration, Mixed-media, Painting, Print Making, Public Art, Sculpture, Kā Toi Māori and more.

Written / Spoken >

Academic, Fiction, Non Fiction, Poetry, Kā Toi Māori and more.

We recommend you find a category that is as close as possible to your field. A curator checks all listings before they are published on the directory and will spot anything that may not look right.

If you can’t find anything to fit your field of creative work, please email the Te Wāhi Toi curator.

Business >

Services, suppliers, galleries, education institutions

Groups >

Bands, collectives, clubs, societies, not for profit organisations

People >

Individuals

We recommend you select a category that fits as closely as possible. A curator checks all listings before they are published on the directory and will spot anything that may not look right.

If you can’t find anything to fit, please email the Te Wāhi Toi curator.

There are some parts of your Te Wāhi Toi profile that are compulsory, like Listing Title and an email address. However most sections are non-compulsory and if you don’t enter information for that question, the section won’t appear on your profile. However, we recommend a full and up to date profile is the best way to promote yourself!

Click the three dot menu on your listing in the My Listing page to add a notice on your event listing. This will appear in an announcement bar across the top of the hero image, separate to the rest of the listing details.

This function works well for notices like “Buy your ticket now!”, “Seats are nearly sold out!!”. All edits, including notices, need to be submitted and approved by the curator before they are published.

If you’re creating several similar listings you can shortcut the inputting step.

Find a listing on your My Listings page you wish to use as a base. Click the three dot menu (top right) and select Duplicate. A draft listing is created with all content pre-filled as per the original listing. Edit each section as needed and submit it for approval.

Yes! Help us to maximise our search engine optimisation by including your personal, business or group’s name in your Creative Directory listing title. Your listing title should be the most obvious phrase people will use to look for you in Google.

Some good listing title examples are:

Bloggs & Daughters - Trapeze artists

Joe Bloggs: Sculptor

Cello lessons with Joe Bloggs

We recommend keeping your listing title to 70 characters or less to make it easy to read and easy for search engine results.

Absolutely. There is a check box in the listing creation flow that will allow you to choose “Online” as the event location. We also recommend you include the word online in your listing title so it’s very obvious, for example, “Online event: Wānaka Ukulele Orchestra Performance”.

The categories for 'Find A Space' are really broad. We expect creatives to do a keyword search to find the specifics they are after so make sure all features are included in the listing copy. You could include a bullet point list at the end of your listing. For example, a dance space might include:

• Full length mirrors
• Ballet barre
• Sprung floor
• Changing facilities

Te Wāhi Toi

Pronunciation: Teah Waa-he Toy

Translation: The Arts Place

One of the Three Lakes Cultural Trust’s strategic objectives is to ensure the rich historical cultural fabric of the district - the legacies of Kāi Tahu and of subsequent settlers - is supported, celebrated and promoted.

We have endeavoured to use correct te reo Māori including the following place names:

• Wānaka
• Lake Wānaka
• Hāwea
• Lake Hāwea
• Whakatipu
• Lake Whakatipu

Within our tags we have utilised Creative NZ’s definition of Ngā toi Māori (Māori arts) which “include, but are not limited to, Māori heritage arts practice such as:  taonga puoro, tārai waka, kaupapa waka,  whakairo, rāranga, tāniko, kākahu, tukutuku, kōwhaiwhai, tā moko, kapa haka, mōteatea, waiata ā-ringa, waiata tawhito, poi, waiata haka, pao, mau rākau, whaikōrero, karanga, whakapapa recitation, te reo me onā tikanga, whakairo, kōrero paki, pakiwaitara, karetao, whare tapere and whakaraka. It also includes the work of Māori artists across all forms of contemporary arts practice." 

We use 'k' instead of 'ng' because the Kai Tahu dialect from southern Te Wai Pounamu substitutes 'k' for 'ng'.  For example:

• Kāi Tahu - Ngāi Tahu
• Mauka - Maunga
• Aoraki - Aorangi

Here’s a great article that shows how you can easily set up your computer keyboard to type macrons.

A good tool for extending your te reo Māori knowledge is the Māori/ English English/Māori dictionary website, Te Aka.

We welcome submissions from our community! Please email the curator to express your interest.

• Live music
• Educational opportunities
• Exhibitions
• Festivals / Markets
• Film screenings
• For Kids - Events created specifically for children
• Literature events
• Meet Ups - Meetings, networking events, social
• Performances - Dance, theatre, comedy and more

Art Object >

Ceramics & Glass,  Furniture,  Jewellery,  Textiles & Weaving,  Kā Toi Māori and more.

Design >

Animation, Architecture, Fashion, Graphic, Kā Toi Māori and more.

Music >

Classical, Contemporary, Jazz, Kā Toi Māori and more.

Performing Arts >

Acrobatics, Comedy, Dance, Theatre/Drama, Kā Toi Māori and more.

Photography / Film >

Art, Commercial, Photography, Videography, Kā Toi Māori and more.

Visual Arts >

Fine Art, Illustration, Mixed-media, Painting, Print Making, Public Art, Sculpture, Kā Toi Māori and more.

Written / Spoken >

Academic, Fiction, Non Fiction, Poetry, Kā Toi Māori and more.

You can expand or decrease the range of new or updated events and listings you see in your personalised feed by going to Account Settings and updating your interests.

You can choose how frequently you receive emails, and which email address emails go to by updating your preferences in Account Settings.