Wild Women’s Weekend 2024: Programme includes talk about sexuality and wellbeing

Wellness coach and Kundalini yoga teacher Soreya James will talk about sexuality at Wild Women's Weekend.

Sexuality will be one of the many things discussed during the Wild Women’s Weekend festival in Whangamatā.

The festival, now in its seventh year, will run from Friday, May 17 to Sunday, May 19 and feature a collection of activities including concerts, a kayak tour, a plant-based cooking course and a workshop around five keys to anti-ageing.

The latter event will be hosted by Whangamatā local Soreya James, who will talk about sexuality, breathing, movement, nutrition and emotional intelligence - her five keys to vitality and anti-ageing.

James said she has had 25 years of experience working in the wellbeing industry and said her own struggle with mental and physical health led her on to this path.

When asked about the Wild Women’s Weekend, James said it attracted women from different walks of life.

“They get to experience a little bit of everything.”

She said her workshop would focus on anti-ageing from the “inside out”.

“Giving women tools to stay young.”

Wild Women’s Weekend is the brainchild of Whangamatā couple Shaun and Diana Fay.

The Fays came to the Coromandel from Australia, where they lived for 14 years, but they missed their weekend escapes visiting festivals and concerts.

It was those events that inspired them to create Wild Women’s Weekend.

The couple said they organised Wild Women’s Weekend after Mother’s Day so children and husbands could “shout deserving women” in their lives a weekend escape.

Sarah Spicer and The Blue Riders performed at the Wild Women's Weekend in 2022.

“We would often see groups of women in Whangamatā,” Diana said.

“We thought, why don’t we just give them some structure, we’ll make it the weekend after Mother’s Day in May and give them lots of things to do.”

The couple still remember their first Wild Women’s Weekend in 2017.

“Our headline act was New Zealand and international star Tina Cross; Tina was brilliant, and it gave the festival a great start,” Diana said.

“Following Tina came Sarah Spicer, X Factor star. And again, the weekend went well.”

After Spicer’s appearance, the couple talked Kiwi musician Shona Laing into a concert.

“Shona lives not far from Whangamatā and is one of my favourite singer/songwriters,” Shaun said.

“I grew up [to the music of] Shona, one of our finest talents; when she agreed I was just star-struck.

Shaun and Diana Fay.

Then Covid hit, the couple refunded ticket holders and wondered about the next year, 2022.

They managed to put another festival together, “but the momentum had slowed, people were Covid weary”.

Last year, they decided to give the event another go, but Cyclone Gabrielle got in the way.

“We didn’t want the pandemic to define what we were trying to create, then it started to rain,” Diana said.

But the Fays decided to keep going.

This year, they decided to lean on the town’s rock and roll heritage with a top New Zealand 80s band and an Elvis tribute show.

“Whangamatā is a perfect festival location; situated in the apex of the Tauranga, Hamilton, Auckland population triangle, it only takes about two hours to get there.

“Over half the houses are summer baches, often empty 10 months of the year; downtown shopping is compact, there’s plenty of food and wine outlets and it has a wonderful beach.

“[That’s] one of the reasons the world’s most successful car festival, Beach Hop, works so well.”

For more details visit wildwomensweekend.co.nz.