1 · Refund and exchange policy
Change of dates and venue, announced 16 September 2026
NZ Pie Fest 2027 now runs Friday 29 to Sunday 31 January 2027 at the Walter Nash Centre, 22 Taine Street, Taita, Lower Hutt. It was previously advertised as the dates and venue first advertised. Hours are unchanged, 10am to 10:30pm each day. Anyone who bought a ticket before 16 September 2026 may keep it for the new dates and venue at the price they paid, or take a full refund of everything they paid, including signature pie tokens and the card service fee. If you bought before 16 September 2026 and want a refund, email office@nzpiefest.co.nz within 30 days of this notice, by 16 October 2026, and we will pay it back to the card you used.
The short version. Tickets are sold for a specific festival on specific dates. We do not refund for a change of mind, but your rights under New Zealand consumer law always apply, and if we cancel the event, or change the dates or the venue, you are protected.
If the festival is cancelled
You receive a full refund of everything you paid, tickets, signature pie tokens, vendor specials and the card service fee, to the card you paid from, without having to ask. We aim to process cancellation refunds within ten working days of announcing the cancellation.
If we change the dates or the venue
If we move the festival to different dates, a different venue, or both, your ticket, your signature pie tokens, any vendor specials and any courtesy drink move with you and stay valid, at the price you paid. If the new dates or the new venue do not suit you, you may ask for a refund of everything you paid on that order, including the card service fee, and we pay it back to the card you paid from. Ask within 30 days of the day we tell you about the change, or before the first day of the festival, whichever comes first.
If we materially change the festival
If we make another major change to what was advertised, you may request a refund of everything you paid on the affected order, including your signature pie tokens and the card service fee. A change of venue or of the festival dates is a major change. A change to the lineup, the program, individual vendors or the activities is not a major change, because the festival is the product, not any single act or stall.
Change of mind
Tickets are not refundable for change of mind or for being unable to attend. You may transfer your ticket to someone else at no charge. Signature pie tokens belong to the order wallet, not to one ticket, so they stay with the order when a ticket is passed to someone else.
Weather
The festival is indoors, so ordinary weather does not stop it. If we cancel a day for safety, the cancellation refund applies to that day.
Signature pie tokens
Signature pie tokens, $7.50 each, are sold for use during the festival and are not refundable after purchase, except where the festival is cancelled or where we change the dates or the venue and you take the refund. Everyone on one order shares one wallet: any ticket QR on the order can pay and top up, kids QRs too, and unspent balance carries to another festival day the order holds a ticket for. Unused tokens are not refunded after the event.
Duplicate or mistaken purchases, and lost tickets
If you are charged twice or clearly bought the wrong thing by mistake, contact us and we will put it right. Tickets can be resent from your order at any time, so a lost email is never a lost ticket.
Nothing in this policy limits your rights under the Consumer Guarantees Act 1993 or the Fair Trading Act 1986.
2 · Terms and conditions of sale and entry
These terms apply when you buy a ticket and when you enter the festival. By buying a ticket you agree to them on behalf of everyone in your party.
Tickets
Tickets are day based for Friday 29, Saturday 30 and Sunday 31 January 2027. A single day ticket admits one person on that day. A three day pass admits one person on each day, one entry per day. Children under five enter free and still need a free ticket; everyone aged five and over needs a paid ticket. A free under five ticket goes with an adult ticket for the same day in the same order: a General Admission under five ticket with a General Admission adult, a VIP under five ticket with a VIP adult. VIP under five tickets count toward VIP availability for that day, carry no VIP inclusions, and may be paused for a day when VIP is busy. Each day of entry on a ticket bought by 10 November 2026 includes one courtesy drink, loaded onto the order wallet, which any ticket QR on the order opens, and redeemable on site. A non alcoholic drink is always available. An alcoholic option is available only if a special licence is granted, and then only to guests aged eighteen and over with photo identification. The courtesy drink has no cash value and is not exchangeable.
VIP tickets, added 18 September 2026
A VIP ticket is a day ticket or a three day pass that carries the VIP inclusions. You may also upgrade a General Admission ticket to VIP after purchase, from your ticket page. A VIP ticket includes:
- VIP entry lane
- Express queue at every bakery
- VIP lounge, bar and toilets
- VIP welcome drink
- VIP welcome pack
- One signature pie token included
- One beverage credit
The VIP welcome drink and the VIP welcome pack are as provided on the day. An upgrade is part of the ticket it was bought for: it is refunded together with that ticket, under the same refund and cancellation policy set out above, and it cannot be refunded on its own while the ticket is kept. VIP inclusions have no cash value, are not exchangeable for cash or for anything else, and are not transferable once used. The VIP entry lane, the express queue and the VIP lounge operate as the venue floor plan allows, and anything served from the VIP bar depends on the special licence being granted and is subject to the same conditions as the rest of the festival, including photo identification for guests aged eighteen and over.
Prices and fees
Prices are in New Zealand dollars and include GST. A card service fee is added at checkout, it covers what the bank charges us to take your payment, and it is shown before you pay. It is refunded in full if the festival is cancelled, or if we change the dates or the venue and you take the refund. Online purchases are card only and your tickets are emailed to you straight away.
Your ticket and entry
Each ticket has a unique QR code. Bring it on your phone or printed. We scan it at the door and a ticket is used once per day, so do not share your QR code, the first scan is the one that gets in.
Entry conditions
Entry is subject to a search of bags on request. We may refuse entry to, or remove without refund, anyone who is intoxicated, behaves unsafely or threateningly, brings prohibited items, or breaches these terms. Prohibited items include your own alcohol, glass, weapons and anything illegal. Pets are not permitted on site, for food safety and crowd safety; certified disability assist dogs are always welcome under the Dog Control Act 1996. The Walter Nash Centre has its own conditions of entry and we enforce them as well as these terms, including the venue rules on capacity, access, and where you may and may not go in the building. The whole venue is smokefree and vape free inside.
Alcohol
Alcohol will be sold on site only if a special licence is granted, and only by the licensed operator appointed to hold it. Neither is confirmed yet. If alcohol is sold, it is sold to people aged eighteen and over, photo identification is required and we operate a responsible service of alcohol policy. You may not bring your own alcohol.
Health and safety
You must follow the directions of festival staff and security and any posted safety signage, and take reasonable care of yourself and others.
Resale and changes
Tickets may be transferred to someone for personal use but may not be resold for profit without our written permission. Details such as the program, the participating bakeries and the floor plan may change, and we will publish material changes on the site. These terms are governed by New Zealand law.
3 · Privacy policy
This explains what personal information the festival collects, why, and your rights, under the Privacy Act 2020. Rimu and Harbour Limited, Wellington, New Zealand, is responsible for the information collected through the festival site and ticketing.
What we collect and why
When you buy a ticket we collect your name, your email address, and your order details, to process your order, send your tickets, support you, measure and improve our advertising, and meet our legal and tax obligations. Payment is processed by Stripe, so your full card number is handled by Stripe and is not stored by us. The People's Pie vote is recorded against your device, not your name.
Analytics and advertising
To understand which of our advertising works, our site reports events (like a page visit or a ticket purchase) to Meta Platforms, the company behind Facebook and Instagram, through its Conversions API. What is shared: technical details of your visit (your IP address, your browser's user agent, and if you arrived from a Facebook or Instagram ad, an identifier for that ad click), and for purchases a hashed, unreadable form of your email address, never the address itself. Meta processes this outside New Zealand under its own terms. We do not send your name in readable form and we never sell your information. If you would rather your purchase were not reported this way, email office@nzpiefest.co.nz before or after buying and we will exclude it.
Who we share it with
We use trusted service providers to run the festival, our payment processor Stripe, our database and hosting providers, our email provider, and Meta Platforms for advertising measurement as described above. They handle your information only to provide their service to us. We do not sell your personal information.
Where it is stored and how we protect it
Our providers may store information on servers outside New Zealand, to a standard comparable to New Zealand law. The festival database uses row level security, and the keys that run payments and the database are held only on our servers, never in the public site.
Your rights
You can ask for a copy of the information we hold about you and ask us to correct it, under the Privacy Act 2020. If you are not satisfied with how we handle your information you can contact us, and you can complain to the Office of the Privacy Commissioner.
4 · Photography and filming consent
The festival is photographed and filmed for promotion and for the festival's own records. By entering you consent to being photographed and filmed, and to that imagery being used by Rimu and Harbour to promote this and future festivals, without payment to you. Clear signs at the entrances remind people that filming is taking place.
If you would rather not feature in our marketing, speak to a staff member or photographer at the festival, or email us afterwards, and we will take reasonable steps to avoid or remove the relevant imagery from material we control. A parent or guardian is responsible for their children at the festival.