FESTA, a vibrant weekend celebration of collaborative urban creativity and regeneration, is asking the New Zealand public to help transform Christchurch with its biggest street party, Lean Means - a night full of lights, colours and people.

This Labour Weekend FESTA’s headline event will once again put community back into the heart of the city on a spectacular night out that brings together thousands of Cantabrians, as well as visitors. The large-scale reimagined city called Lean Means is live for one night only, on Saturday 22 October. It is free and open to all.

This year's festival is focusing on making the most of the resources (our people and reusable materials) available to us. For this extravaganza, eighteen student studios from seven leading design and architecture schools from across Australasia will transform inner city spaces by transforming materials: they will design and fabricate imaginative and immense installations from reused 'waste' materials.

The temporary city will be full of art, events, music, performance, markets, pop-up food vendors, kids activities and more.

FESTA is currently running a crowdfunding campaign and asking members of the public to participate in helping to create a large-scale, spectacular temporary reimagined city for the public to enjoy. (Visit Pledgeme for more information). With so many collaborators - from artists through to local businesses - this is a crowd-created festival, so festival organisers see crowdfunding as an appropriate way to fund the big night out and another way to involve the public.

The transformation is set to be spectacular. Make sure you are in Christchurch on Saturday 22 October for this wonderful event.

For media queries, please contact emma@festa.org.nz