Christian Music Online

Parachute Christian Music Festival

September 14, 2005 – 10:02 am

Parachute Christian Music Festival hits Hamilton this weekend
Can you imagine anything more scary than 28,000 teenagers?! Well, they descend en masse this weekend upon rural New Zealand’s Hobbit shires and grassy knolls of Hamilton, for the GOD-rock fest that is Parachute.

From this Friday 23 January, Hamilton’s Mystery Creek Event Centre will play host for the first time to the largest Christian Music Festival in the Southern Hemisphere, Parachute 04. I attended every year for years when it first begun, and it spiralled larger and larger with passing years, losing its personal touch but gaining momentum and fervour and of course, its impact on the nation’s youth. As a force in bringing Christian message through the forum of contemporary music, Parachute has no equal in New Zealand and perhaps Australia.

Parachute Music expects a record crowd of 28,000 to come through the gates over the weekend to see over 100 bands including international acts Relient K, Newsboys, The Tribe, Pillar, Christafari, Parachute Band, Hillsong United, Paul Colman Trio and Darlene Zschech as well as a full ‘non-music programme’.

For the 1500 volunteers and staff however the festival began as early as last Monday setting up seven stages, laying out the tent city and preparing ‘The Coca-Cola Village’ where everything from cuisine to fashion will be sold, as well playing host to New Zealand’s largest Wireless Internet Hotspot.

Mark Mortlock, festival director said “The advantage of the Mystery Creek site is that you can look down over the whole site and see the magnitude of it. It’s going to be a huge weekend!”

“The huge volunteer force are a vital part of Parachute 04, in fact, without their help there is no way this event would be so successful,” Mortlock said.

Gates open at 11:00am on Friday for those with pre-purchased tickets or 2:00pm for gate sales. Parachute 04 tickets are available at NZ Post or at Parachute 04.

There will be a bus service running between Hamilton and Mystery Creek over the weekend.

---

---