Nightlife & the Arts in Auckland

For the latest information on nightclubs get your hands on What's On Auckland, a pocket-size booklet available at all visitor information bureaus. The monthly Metro magazine, available at newsstands, has a guide to theater, arts, and music, and can also give you a helpful nightlife scoop. City Mix magazine, also published monthly and stocked at newsstands, has a complete guide to what's happening in the city, and the Friday and Saturday editions of the New Zealand Herald run a gig guide and full cinema and theater listings.

The Arts

The Auckland arts scene is busy, particularly in the area of visual arts, with some 60 dealer galleries operating. Theater is on the rise and more touring exhibitions and performing companies are coming through the city than ever before, and the Auckland Philharmonia Orchestra performs regularly, including at the summer series of free concerts in the park at the Domain, when thousands of music lovers sit with picnics under the stars. The new Vector Arena by the harbor is attracting plenty of rock acts, too.

Nightlife

After sunset the bar action is split across four distinct areas, with the central city a common ground between the largely loyal Parnell and Ponsonby crowds. Parnell has several restaurants and bars frequented by a polished, free-spending crowd. For a more relaxed scene, head to Ponsonby Road, west of the city center, where you'll find street-side dining and packed bars—often at the same establishment. If you prefer to stay in the city center, the place to be for bars is the Viaduct, particularly in summer, or High Street and nearby O'Connell Street, with a sprinkling of bars in between. At the Queen Street end of Karangahape Road (just north of Highway 1) you'll find shops, lively bars, cafés, and nightspots. Nightclubs, meanwhile, are transient animals with names and addresses changing monthly if not weekly.

There is also a growing nightlife scene on the North Shore—particularly in the upmarket seaside suburb of Takapuna. If you make the trip over the bridge, you'll be rewarded by bars and restaurants with a very relaxed atmosphere; it's the sort of place where people spill into the streets.

From Sunday to Tuesday many bars close around midnight, and nightclubs, if open, close about midnight or 1 AM. From Thursday to Saturday, most bars stay open until 2 or 3 AM. Nightclubs keep rocking until at least 4 AM and some for a couple of hours after that. People dress relatively casually, but that said, some doormen or bouncers can be unreasonable sticklers and may refuse entry if you're wearing jeans and for men jandals or open-toed sandals.

An institution with the central city bar crowd is the White Lady. Indecorously towed by a tractor to her permanent spot on the corner of Shortland and Queen streets, this long, slumped trailer is far from genteel. But she beckons those in need of sustenance between bars, serving up burgers crammed with extras such as fried egg, onion, and beetroot that vanquish the appetite of even the hungriest night owls. She's on duty daily from 8 PM to 4 AM. Farther up the street many of the Asian restaurants are open very late, too.

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