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WOMAD is a celebration of music, arts and dance for all ages, with artists from around the globe. I’m lucky enough to have worked as crew in the 1990s at their European events, and the annual festival in Taranaki is one of my favourite locations.

You can explore the WOMAD NZ site with an interactive map, and view the Storify stream I compiled for The Big Idea over three days with pictures, videos and tweets tagged with the #womadnz hashtag.

My mobile media toolkit was a Samsung Note 3 smartphone running the WOMAD phone app, with Instagram for pictures, quick video clips, and Hootsuite for posting to twitter. Another essential item was an external battery bank, for charging my phone while roaming the site. I also had fun playing with a 360 degree app, and you can check out panoramas of the main stage and the Taste the World & Living Library zones. 

My highlights this year were the workshop from Ladysmith Black Mambazo, famous for their vocal harmonies on Paul Simon’s iconic Graceland album. They led the crowd through uplifting Zulu songs, and a demonstration of African dance. 

Headliners De La Soul played an excellent old skool hip hop set, with a shout out to the WOMAD ducks and the tantalising smell of Wonuts. Best of all was the performances from Orange Blossom from France, who closed the event on Sunday night with their fusion of electronica, eastern melodies, an acrobatic violinist and funky drummers.

Notable mentions go to the walkabout clown posse, the Peacock ladies on stilts, the toilet wranglers who kept the queues moving at peak times, and the recycling crew who made sure the site was clean, green and lovely. Apart from some rain on Sunday which didn’t dampen the atmosphere, it was a sea of smiles all weekend.