The Homegrown music festival has been postponed due to organisers' safety concerns over wild weather battering Wellington.
The event featuring Shihad, Shapeshifter, Kora, David Dallas and others was expected to attract some 17,500 people but winds could exceed 120 km/h today so the event was postponed until tomorrow.
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High winds tossed shipping containers into Wellington Harbour yesterday and it took several hours to retrieve them.
MetService has issued a strong wind warning for the capital, with northerly gales expected today.
Homegrown organisers said the waterfront festival would "definitely" proceed tomorrow with all seven stages and performers as planned. Two back up events for out-of-town visitors were now set for TSB Arena today.
Organisers said they understood many visitors may not be able to change travel plans to stay for the Sunday festival.
"In an effort to deliver as much as we can for the people that have travelled and can't stay in Wellington for Sunday, we are going to run two separate shows in TSB Bank Arena today," Homegrown said in an update in its website this morning.
The arena shows were only for visitors to Wellington, so tickets would be scanned to identify where they were bought.
"If you are from Wellington your ticket will not get you into these gigs but the full festival will definitely happen on Sunday so you won't miss out at all," organisers promised.
Meanwhile, MetService was predicting heavy rain for Westland, Buller and the ranges of northwest Nelson today, as well as heavy rain in eastern Otago.
Another forecaster said more grim weather was possible in mid-March.
WeatherWatch said a "nasty storm" could hit New Zealand around next weekend as a severe tropical cyclone was likely to emerge in the southwest Pacific.
"Many computer models that New Zealanders look at online show a nasty storm moving towards northern New Zealand just after the middle of March. Other models that WeatherWatch.co.nz use, and rely on, show it may track well east of us. Either way, we're somewhat in the middle of these potential paths," WeatherWatch said.