Light Up Your Queenstown Winter: LUMA 2025
LUMA stopped being a long weekend and became a winter long night walk through the bush at Kiwi Park. What it is now, and how to check if it is running.
For years LUMA was a long weekend. Queenstown Gardens, thousands of people shuffling through in the cold, and it was over by Monday. LUMA Enchanted is what it turned into, and it is a different thing entirely: a ticketed night walk through five acres of native bush at Kiwi Park, running across the winter rather than across a weekend. If you are putting a Queenstown winter trip together, Evolve Rentals will have the car at your door, and the evenings are the part of a winter trip people plan worst.
What is LUMA Enchanted?
A light and sound trail through the bush after dark, described by the park itself as the winter long evolution of Queenstown's light festival.
The walk runs through five acres of native bush and nocturnal habitat, with sixteen bespoke light sculptures by award winning artists along the route, plus projection, sound and interactive pieces. Entry is timed and the walk takes about an hour, which is the right length for a cold night and short enough that children get through it without complaint.
The part worth knowing is where the ticket money goes. Kiwi Park runs conservation and breeding programmes for New Zealand native species, and every ticket contributes to them. It is a rare case of the nice evening out and the worthy thing being the same purchase.
It is worth being clear about the change, because people who knew the old LUMA still arrive expecting it. That version ran over a single long weekend and pulled big crowds into the Gardens. This one is ticketed, timed and deliberately smaller in the moment, which is the entire point of it. You walk a trail rather than join a crowd, and the sculptures get looked at rather than filed past.
Where is it, and do you actually need to drive?
Kiwi Park is at 51 Brecon Street, about five minutes from the middle of Queenstown, at the bottom of the hill by the gondola.
So the honest answer is that if you are staying centrally, you walk. It is a short, well lit walk into town afterwards and there is no sense pretending otherwise. Brecon Street parking is also tight on a winter evening, so driving the last five hundred metres is often slower than not.
Where the car earns its keep is everything around it. If you are staying out towards Frankton, Arthurs Point or Arrowtown, a timed entry on a winter night is not something you want to leave to a shuttle. And an evening walk only fills an evening. The day before it is the part that needs wheels.
Book the timed entry before you arrive rather than on the night. Timed slots exist to stop the trail bunching up, which means the best ones, early evening and the first hour after dark, go first. A walk like this is considerably better when you are not waiting behind a large group at every installation, and in winter the difference between a booked slot and a hopeful turn up is often the difference between going and not.
Is it running this year?
Check before you plan around it. As things stand, LUMA's own site still shows the 2025 season as finished and has not announced what comes next, so the safest thing is to look at luma.nz or the park's social pages rather than assume the dates from a previous winter. An event that changed shape once may well change again.
If it turns out not to be running while you are here, the evening is not lost. Queenstown's winter nights are the quietly good part of the season and there is more on than the mountain report suggests.
What else fills a Queenstown winter evening?
The other lit up winter night out is Ayrburn's Winter Wonderland, out in the Arrowtown direction, which is a longer evening and a proper drive rather than a walk. The two work well in the same trip because they are nothing like each other.
For the daytime around it, winter in Queenstown without skis covers the days when the mountain is not the plan, and there is a hot chocolate worth walking to on the way back from most of it.
And if the forecast is clear, spend the short afternoon on one of the winter drives that need no four wheel drive. Getting back into town as the light goes, with a timed entry an hour later, is close to the best a Queenstown winter day gets.
Dress for standing still. It is a walk in the bush at night in a Queenstown winter and the temperature is not negotiable. Whatever you would wear to watch it, add a layer, because most of the hour is spent looking up rather than moving.
Book with Evolve Rentals and tell us where you are staying. We bring the car to you in Queenstown, which nobody else here does, so a winter trip starts at your accommodation rather than in a queue.
FAQs
What is LUMA Enchanted?
A ticketed night walk through five acres of native bush at Kiwi Park in Queenstown, with sixteen light sculptures, projection and sound along the route. It takes about an hour and entry is timed. It is the winter long version of what used to be a long weekend light festival.
Where is LUMA held in Queenstown?
Kiwi Park, 51 Brecon Street, about five minutes from the centre of town near the bottom of the gondola. If you are staying centrally it is an easy walk, and parking on Brecon Street is tight on a winter evening.
Is LUMA suitable for children?
Yes. It is a flat, timed walk of about an hour with plenty to look at, which is roughly the limit of what a cold evening and small legs will take. Dress everybody warmer than you think, because most of it is spent standing and looking.
Does the ticket money go anywhere?
Yes. Every ticket contributes to Kiwi Park's conservation and breeding programmes for New Zealand native species.