Wellington sevens

The first weekend in February was a long weekend to mark Waitangi Day. It was also the weekend of the Wellington Sevens. The Sevens is a Wellington institution and a must do on the global calendar of any serious fancy-dress fan. Part of the World HSBC Sevens Series, it's gained a reputation as one of the biggest fancy dress parties in the World. Apparently there's also some rugby going on in the background.


Tens of thousands of Kiwis (and a few expats) descend on the Wellington stadium for two days in some of the most impressive costumes I've ever seen. In the two days I noticed only two people at the tournament not wearing fancy dress...truly spectacular!


Helen, Harry, Angela and I decided to find a theme with four characters. After much deliberation we settled on Wizard of Oz. We had a mix of bought and home-made costumes. I was the tinman, which involved two cans of silver car spray paint, two pots of silver face paint, lots of cardboard, red material and about a week of evenings to prepare. It turned out to be quite a good choice as we only ran into a couple of other groups who had chosen the same (among 35,000 people in fancy dress that represents pretty good odds).

Costume components

Getting silver

The end result

We're off to see the wizard...after another beer

The effort that some people had gone to was incredible. The ideas ranged from traditional to topical, via trashy and truly bizarre. I didn't take many photos, but the newspapers got plenty.

Before we even got to the stadium

Lego men was a popular theme

These guys don't look to happy with their outfits

After the end of the rugby on the Friday night we headed into town to party. I eventually made it home about 5am. Getting up the next morning and doing it all over again was pretty hard!


I arrived in NZ just after the Sevens last year and all year people had been telling me I had to make sure I went. Now I've been I understand why. It was a legendary weekend, like no other party I've ever been to. Oh, and New Zealand won in the rugby.