Who Has The Best Current Music Scene In Aotearoa?
I conducted an exhaustive, comprehensive, double-blind trial to answer this question definitively and objectively. Will the answer surprise you?
As of writing, it’s still only possible to exist in one place at one time for a human. As musicians are often humans (unless you’re an AI band on Spotify)1 its time to ask - Which city has the best current scene in Aotearoa?
Its time for a completely objective fact based Regional Power Rankings - a new annual tradition set to determine the migration patterns of Kiwi musicians who can’t stomach the thought of telling their friends they’re moving to Melbourne and so must settle somewhere across the motu instead for the next year.
Instagram voted for Christchurch as #1 - however a deeper dive was called for in an effort to beat the favouritism allegations.
So we’re going to look at three different categories and compare the four cities against one another, awarding points for the winner. Those categories will be:
Who gets funded.
Who gets booked.
Who gets awards.
Theres also a People Choice poll at the end of the article so let your opinion be known there!
Lets dive in!
Who Gets Given The Big Bucks?
This is how the latest round of New Music Funding broke down:
Dunedin: 1
London: 2
Christchurch: 4
Los Angeles: 1
Auckland: 15
Wellington: 1
Raglan: 1
Hawaii: 1
Multi-Dimensional: Black Comet
Auckland obviously wins this round - earning themselves the point. They crushed their opposition into dust as they hoovered up public money and slipped it into the local film industry pockets while drinking their natural wines and committing to 9am coffee dates at Daily Bread Ponsonby. Typical.
Interestingly there are more artists living overseas funded than Wellington & Dunedin musicians combined so minus a point for both of them. Blame the panel not me.
Who Gets Picked To Play The Festivals?
For this round we’ll break down the publicly released line-ups for JUNK, Great Sounds Great, & The Others Way to gauge who is most appealing to the promoters across the motu.
Breaking down the line-ups we have:
Auckland: 25
Wellington: 14
Dunedin: 5
Christchurch: 3
Big Auckland win again though there is admittedly an advantage to having two out of three festivals featured hosted in your city. So a half point for Auckland.
Christchurch is doing even worse than it looks here as The Bats alone account for two out of the three festival spots! The 03 was also the only city of the four to not feature in the JUNK lineup at all. Sad & bad.
The Dunedin band showing of 5 is particularly impressive given how the expense of flying out of Dunedin Airport is only matched by long it takes to drive to the airport itself.
Minus points for Christchurch which has an extremely affordable and accessible airport but almost no interest from promoters in flying any bands in and out of it.
Who Wins The Awards?
Critical acclaim is important and awards are hard fought for! Its never easy to win a Tūi especially now they’re letting Charli xcx compete.
But which city did the best this year?
Christchurch: 4
Auckland: 3
Wellington: 1
Dunedin: 0
With critical darlings like Fazerdaze now calling Canterbury home we always had a good shot of leaving the 2025 AMA’s with awards - and after nabbing 4 Tūi’s Christchurch takes home top points.
Wellington carried on the trend of being the bridesmaid but never the bride, with DARTZ being awarded Best Rock Artist before subsequently moving to Melbourne, while Earth Tongue won Best Group but actually live in Berlin so unlucky there.
No Dunedin bands or artists on the podium, no Dunedin bands or artists making the finalist lists - were there any Ōtepoti bands even in the building? Thats minus points for the AMA’s really, you cant blame their bad taste on Dunedin bands.
Final Results! Danny Carey 8min Drum Solo Pleaseeeee!
The most comments on the ‘best scene’ Instagram poll were from Wellington scene lovers (until I posted about Live Nation anyway lol) and while we all love to hate it - Auckland clearly benefits from having a monopoly on music institutions (also kind of like Live Nation - boom!2).
Personally, I have bands that I adore from each city currently including (but not limited to):
Auckland: Ringlets, Awning, Office Dog, Salt Water Criminals, Soft Bait, Fazed on a Pony,
Wellington: Dropper, Cruelly, Vera Ellen, Macho Macho, Goya, Horn
Christchurch: Marsha, This Dog, Ben Woods, Wurld Series, Violet French, Mousey, Pickle Darling, Fazerdaze.
Dunedin: Pearly, Hōhā, Dale Kerrigan, Space Bats Attack! Bathysphere
On and on and on our scenes across the country remain strong.
Some limitations will always remain - if you live outside of Auckland and you want access to funding you’ll have to find an excuse to visit and play more often. If you live in Auckland you’ll have to find a way to afford to live in one of the worlds most expensive cities without working so much you can actually create music.
Living down south is perfect for those its perfect for (like me) but you risk finding it hard to cut through and get noticed by the wider NZ community - something I believe the bands here in Christchurch are currently being challenged with.
There is no best scene or city for everyone at every time in their lives. Dunedin was perfect for me at 19 and London was great at 22. I enjoyed my eight years in Auckland, and Im loving being here in Ōtautahi now.
If there’s anything to take away from this article its this - no city is right for you because its right for someone else.
But also, Christchurch is the right city for you and obviously the best scene in Aotearoa right now! Settled!
Have Your Say You Powerful People!
This study was of course rigorous and definitive - however I do believe in freedom of expression so before you leave please feel free to vote for the People’s Choice Award below.
And if you have time let me know:
what makes it the best?
what bands / artists are people sleeping on?
You can let me know by leaving a comment or replying to the newsletter directly!
Just for the record, 3 of those Auckland bands listed at the end are Ōtepoti transplants