Update: In 2012 we will be at PassionFest and not Parachute Festival.
Original Post: OK. We arrived safely in New Zealand and are about to attend Parachute Festival, New Zealands largest Christian music festival. Actually, Parachute is NZ's largest music festival of any kind with about 25,000 people coming each year. Thats a little larger than Greenbelt in UK and a little smaller than Cornerstone in USA.
Best Bets for Parachute? I'm not sure. I havent been back in NZ for over a decade and really dont know which speakers or presenters or artists I should be looking out for.
However, some friends of mine will be there . . .
My good mate Mark Pierson will be at the World Vision display and I assume is speaking somewhere - in fact, if he is not speaking somewhere then I wish to speak to the management. Mark just released one of the best books I read in 2010 called The Art of Curating Worship - an amazing, emotional, historical book on the alt. worship movement and the whys and hows of curating worship.
Mark is also organising an event for me in Auckland for some key pastors and leaders on Feb 2 - yes I am pimping my own non-Parachute meeting now - I will be speaking on how NZ churches and missions can get up to speed on social media and will be highlighting some of the social media and storytelling priorities that we discussed in Cape Town at Lausanne World Congress last September. Email me if you wish to be part of this group. tallskinnykiwi at gmail dot com
Also, back to Parachute here, my friend Dave White is doing a Bob Dylan trib on Sunday night and playing the country hits of Christian music on mainstage Saturday night.
Anyone else? Someone throw me a bone.
Oh and if you are like me and having trouble finding the location on the official website, Parachute 2011 will be held at the Mystery Creek Events Centre, 125 Mystery Creek Rd, Mystery Creek, Hamilton.
Stay tuned and I will send up few blog posts with the best of Parachute and what I think NZ could offer the world.
Twitter - #Parachute2011
