How does Winter Pride ticketing work?

Winter Pride is a festival, not just a handful of big parties. We offer a broad range of events, many of which are community-based and free, and work hard to offer many services and extras to make Winter Pride a wonderful, memorable 10 days for all. To make this possible, we, like many festivals, operate by selling passes.

We call our passes Patron Statuses - these give holders access to be able to book tickets to different events. How many and what type of events you are eligible to choose depends on the Patron Status level you select. (More details on the Patron Status structure below.)

We offer priority ticket access to Patron Status holders, meaning they get first access to book tickets for events, before the general public. This is why we highly recommend that guests purchase Patron Statuses to make the most of their time with us.

Please note that purchasing a Patron Status does not guarantee your access to a given event, it only gives priority access to the first release of tickets. We recommend you pay close attention to ticket release dates and, when they become available, book as soon as you have access. This gives you the best chance of being able to attend the events you’re most interested in.

We’ve made this handy graphic below explaining the steps of getting your Patron’s Status and booking your tickets. Happy booking everyone!

Winter Pride 2022 Ticket Release Dates

We release our tickets in phases to ensure we can monitor capacity for our limited capacity events, and to give our loyal Patron Status purchases first priority access.

Please find below a handy graphic detailing our 2022 release dates.

Mark your calendars!

How much do Patron’s Statuses cost and what do they give me access to?

This year, we're offering four Patron's Status levels. Each gives you access to book for different events. Check out this handy graphic for the info.

Please note that purchasing a Patron Status does not guarantee your access to a given event, it only gives priority access to the first release of tickets. We recommend you pay close attention to ticket release dates and, when they become available, book as soon as you have access. This gives you the best chance of being able to attend the events you’re most interested in.

Also of note, our Sunday Session event does not count as one of your included events, as it’s totally free and operates entirely on a revolving door policy.

Similarly, you do not need to register or count any Apres Ski event as one of your included events as these are also free and require no registration.

Check out our ticket release graphic to see when Patron's Statuses go on sale. Happy booking everyone!

Winter Pride 2022 Refund Policy

At Winter Pride, we try to make it as easy as possible to make your plans but also to change them if needed. That's why all our ticket options are at least partially refundable.
If you're buying a Patron's Status for 2022, take note of the deadlines below by which you can get a percentage of your ticket refunded to you.
 
Patrons can self-manage their requests for refunds through the Humanitix system, and you don’t need to justify the reason for your cancellation to Winter Pride when doing so. 
 
We hope this gives you some sense of security when booking with us! And while we know that there are many moving parts when planning events, we hope more than anything to see you for a gorgeous, proud festival this August.
 
Please note, refunds for cancellations are strictly limited to the amounts listed here, up to the dates in question.
 
Winter Pride reserves the right to alter, cancel and move events if requested or required to by authorities and/or government bodies, including local authorities. If a patron wishes to cancel their tickets due to these changes then refunds will be strictly limited to the percentages below by those dates.
 
The non-refunded portion of fees is used to cover administration, booking, marketing and other commitments to suppliers and is strictly non-refundable after these dates listed below.

Pencil in the dates! Winter Pride Festival 2022 is 26th August to 4th September in Queenstown

We’re ecstatic to announce that our 2022 festival dates will be Friday 26th August - Sunday 4th September in Queenstown. Pencil us in! We’re hard at work planning a wide variety of events - including some of our favourite parties, ski & on-mountain events, après ski, game nights, drag, and more action packed festival days. We can’t wait to see you in Queenstown and Central Otago for an awesome, pride-filled festival.

Our Facebook event is now live, click "attending" to stay in the loop.

If you didn't receive our November newsletter, you can read it here and register to receive newlsetters at the bottom of this page.

And remember to make sure that you register (use link below) to get updates and an invite to purchase.

Register for WP '22

Release of Long Weekend festival 2-5 September (L2 Covid only) (25 / 08 / 2021)

Following this week's announcement of the lockdown extension and cancellation of Winter Pride Events until 2nd of September (and large events after this date), we are now able to announce our Winter Pride Long Weekend schedule for COVID-19 Alert Level 2 events, from 2nd September to 5th September.

One thing COVID-19 teaches you it is adapt and pivot quickly, and we have done that!
The purpose of this plan is to enable people who can, and who want to come together safely in Queenstown to have a range of COVID-19 Alert Level 2 compliant events to attend. If there is no COVID-19 in the South Island, there is no reason why that this can't go ahead.

Whilst all our large events can’t operate and have been cancelled, we have 4 days and more than 15 events to choose from. It may be smaller, but that’s a pretty cool little festival, in a pretty cool little town that is PROUD to host Winter Pride. We have a great line up of local and South Island DJ’s for our events, and some awesome local Drag performances to throw into the mix.

ALL events (except Gibbston Valley Long Lunch) **will be FREE access to any Winter Pride Patrons** irrespective of whether they have claimed a partial refund or not. We know there are people from Christchurch, Dunedin and Invercargill keen to meet friends in Queenstown, and potentially further afield depending on lockdown measures in the the rest of the country outside of Auckland. It's important for so many LGBT+ people and our wellbeing to connect in safe spaces which may not exist at other times of the year.

The Long Weekend Level 2 plan is based on the assumption that the Mountains open and can operate safely, that bars, cafes, venues, and wineries open for seated events with compulsory track and tracing and this is perfect for our small, but special festival this year.

Patron's will need to just register their 'interest' from Friday afternoon following the next COVID-19 Alert Level announcement, when we hope we will know whether this is possible or not. Remember, all events will only have 100 people maximum, must be seated, it will be compulsory to scan or sign in, and anyone who is sick or has symptoms will not be able to attend. Our team that are customer facing will also be wearing masks. The mountains have different regulations, but will be open at Level 2. Check out the mountain websites for further information.

Keep an eye on your emails over the coming days for the registration link.

The Winter Pride team is looking forward to bringing everyone back together in August 2021 to reconnect.

Winter Pride 2021 is in the final stages of planning. Talent is booked and we are putting together our '21 volunteer crew.

This year we have added 40% to our 2019 Pride Party Series capacity and we are excited about the number of free and public access events on offer during the festival, especially those on our partner mountains and our ASB Pride in the Park and Woof events.

This year, most of our Pride Party Series events have already sold out and only patrons will be able to attend the festival's Pride Party Series events. We have 4 levels of patronage - Maxi (SOLD OUT), Mini (SOLD OUT), Long Weekender (SOLD OUT) and Enabling (SOLD OUT). Each will have a different level of prioritised access to events. See the graphic below for what prioritised access means at each patron level.

Register to become a patron using the "How to Access Events" Link below.

Check the EVENTS page for updates on which Pride Party Series Events are sold out.

How to access events