Visa Wellington on a plate 2025 post-event report

THE IMPACT OF VISA WELLINGTON ON A PLATE

VISA WELLINGTON ON A PLATE CELEBRATES OUR CULINARY CAPITAL

Visa Wellington On a Plate is the largest culinary festival in the southern hemisphere. It has two objectives:

• To support the hospitality industry to thrive by creating a reason for people to patronise venues
• To celebrate Wellington as a culinary, creative capital city

The month-long festival contributes to city pride and liveability, and it’s recognised as an important part of our food and drink sector.

This August we were treated to 319 different events, dishes and burgers that encouraged us to ‘eat curious’. And diners enjoyed a total of 226,000 culinary experiences during the festival.

The festival theme for 2025 was ‘Food is Love’ and participating venues expressed this through celebrations of heritage and culture, family traditions, acts of love and interpretations of love in its many forms - from the the hopelessly romantic to the platonic, to the love of the land, and pop-culture references.

ECONOMIC IMPACT OF VISA WELLINGTON ON A PLATE

Visa Wellington On a Plate contributes ~$7m to the local economy.

• $647k in ticket sales for events
• $5.4m in Burger Wellington sales and beer matches
• $750k from non-ticketed event attendance
• 2,052 room nights, with an average spend per visitor of $456

VISA WELLINGTON ON A PLATE SUPPORTS CITY PRIDE AND VIBRANCY

Visa Wellington On a Plate helps to make Wellington a better place for people who live and work here. It brings vibrancy and energy to the city during the depths of winter, and contributes to our placemaking and sense of pride. Additionally, it drives business prosperity by encouraging Wellingtonians to get out and experience the best of our culinary capital.

97% of consumers agree hosting events like VWOAP makes Wellington 'a more enjoyable place to live'

92% of consumers agree hosting events like VWOAP 'increases my pride in Wellington'

“Visa WOAP gives you something to do that makes it worth going out in the cold and dark, helps bring a buzz to the city and encourages you to try new places.”

“I enjoyed people coming out to support the Wellington Hospo community, and celebrating the vibrancy and diversity of the city's food”.

PAID MEDIA

The festival's paid campaign delivered impressive reach and engagement across digital, social, and broadcast channels. Achieving 7.18 million impressions, 23,251 clicks, and a CTR of 0.32% across Meta, TikTok, Reddit, DV360, and premium mobile placements via We Are Frank. TikTok and We Are Frank performed particularly strongly, driving the highest engagement and click-through rates (up to 1.10% CTR), and effectively reaching younger, "experience-seeking" audiences.

Complementing digital activity, Visa WOAP's partnership with NZME (specifically ZM and The Hits) amplified reach through on-air promotions, street activations, and social content. Together, these activations extended visibility beyond digital channels, delivering high-impact engagement and local buzz that brought the festival to life across Wellington and beyond.

OUT OF HOME (OOH)

OOH played a major role in driving visibility and citywide excitement, with over 400 sites activated across Wellington, Auckland, and Christchurch. Formats included street and bollard posters, digital street furniture, VMO office and retail screens, and street flags.

Creative executions evolved across campaign phases - from awareness in June to Burger Wellington hype in August - ensuring consistent street-level presence and strong local resonance. The Wellington-focused August push, featuring 195 sites, effectively built festival buzz and complemented social and digital activity during peak participation.

WELLINGTON ON A GOOD NIGHT

For the first time ever, we hosted a dinner on the pitch of Wellington’s Sky Stadium. Guests enjoyed a unique dining experience - entering the stadium through the players entrance (complete with pyrotechnics!) and then gathering around shared tables for a meal cooked over fire. Live music and smores stations rounded out a night to remember.

NON-TICKETED EVENTS (POP-UPS) & COMMUNITY ENGAGEMENT

The programme featured 24 free / pay-on-consumption events. These non-ticketed events are an opportunity for people to engage in the festival at an accessible price point.

Events included the one-day Tacover held at Double Vision Brewery in Miramar (featured to the left), weekend pop-ups at Glou Glou and Swimsuit, weekly Next Gen Cook Off fundraisers at LTD. and month-long restaurant transformations at Beach Babylon and Cicio Cacio Osteria.

Kaibosh and Everybody Eats closed the festival with their fundraiser event, We Love Mac 'n' Cheese, hosted at LTD.

262 venues participated across the Visa WOAP events programme and Burger Wellington. 21% were first-time participants.

Their main motivations for being involved were improving awareness, driving revenue, and having an opportunity for creativity and innovation.

Most respondents agreed that Visa WOAP delivered increased sales, is vital to the hospitality sector, and an important part of Wellington's story

''Was an incredible boost for business. We haven’t seen so many people come through our doors since we first opened!''

''As an owner of a cafe, we have never been this busy, especially in the middle of August which is usually the quietest month for us, however participating WOAP has been the best decision we have made this year, the feedback’s been amazing, overall an overwhelmingly positive result for us and we are super grateful''

“We do rely on this boost in August, and customers are clearly preparing themselves for it!"