June 2020 in Queenstown - A New Face
The Snow in June – is Too Soon!
We locals have a saying that ‘The Snow in May Never Stays' and the ‘Snow in June is Too Soon’! Basically, for us, winter starts in July and lasts 3 months – until the end of September.
So what does that make June? Well, June is an interesting month in Queenstown for a number of reasons. We consider it more of a shoulder season, highlighting the changing seasons that see the opening of Cardrona Alpine Resort a little later than normal following a review of their timelines after factoring in Covid-19, around the 26th and the two local ski fields a week after that . And of course, had it been a 'normal year' we would ave seen the Real Journeys Winter Festival – a celebration of all things winter and of all things Queenstown. but alas, not this year!
The official statement from the Winter Festival is:
REAL JOURNEYS QUEENSTOWN WINTER FESTIVAL CANCELLED FOR 2020
With the uncertainty around the COVID-19 pandemic, we have made the difficult but pragmatic decision for our community and have cancelled the Real Journeys Queenstown Winter Festival for 2020.
We’d like to thank our sponsors, suppliers and team members for their ongoing support through this time.
Look after each other, stay safe and we’ll see you in 2021 to celebrate our beautiful backyard with and even bigger and brighter festival!
What we normally like about June is the opportunity that exists for a large range of unusual and unique entertainment and events to take place. Between LUMA and the Winter Festival there are 3 action packed weeks of smaller more specialized, exclusive and low key events. Luma replaced its garden show this year with a 'Lumify your Neighbourhood' which was pretty spectacular
and again, this year we'll miss the normal sporiting events such as the kayaking winter series training and the local Queenstown ice hockey team playing – the stampede. Until we get to Level one of lockdown measures, we won't see the normal music sessions – everything from jazz to electro technic DJ shows, business workshops, book launches, art exhibitions, cuisine challenges, choir shows, cooking courses, family dynamic workshops, roller derby tournaments, communication learning evenings, even macramé, paint and wine nights, comedy shows, open mic nights, Wine and Wax (snowboards) ladies evenings, and loads of scheduled family friendly events such as disco Ice skating…. The list goes on and on!
So our point is, yes – there are some spectacular large scale ‘all bells and whistles’ type events normally hosted in June. And winter alone is one big event too…. But this June in Queenstown we still have a lot to offer with, well, less of the crowds and international tourists. So don’t wait to come down, join us now and enjoy the new face of Queenstown before winter truly arrives!
Sources:
Ultimate Queenstown
nz.com