Build-up for Rotorua's Mudtopia Festival gathers pace

Festival-goers enjoy the mud during the annual Boryeong Mud Festival earlier this year. Photo/Getty

Rotorua's first annual Mudtopia Festival is just two months away, and festival director Sarah Lewis says it's all coming together and on track for a successful weekend.

Ms Lewis said the marketing, the scheduling and excitement levels were all starting to ramp up and crystallise.

"It's starting to feel very real and exciting," she said.

Ms Lewis said ticket sales for the December 1-3 festival were in line with projections, and hoped the sun warming up over the next few weeks would garner more interest and encourage those on the fence to buy.

She said importantly, those buying tickets should sort out their accommodation early.

"There is a little bit of a perception that Rotorua has millions of motels, hotels and hostels, and we'll leave it to the last minute. We are trying to communicate to make sure when you book your ticket you book your accommodation."

Headlined by Australian electronic act Peking Duk and Kiwis Shapeshifter, the festival was inspired by South Korea's internationally renowned Boryeong Mud Festival, which has been running for 20 years.

"Our [marketing] partners are starting to work on their activation plans and we're starting to see what that's going to look like, and we've blocked out all of our main acts now. We're just in the process of finalising some community performers."

She said the cancellation of the planned purchase of Boryeong mud, from the Korean city, had wider implications than financial.

"It was never an exchange of just mud - it was an exchange of intellectual property, an exchange of understanding the festival dynamic, and also some promotion... of Rotorua and the mud festival."

She said Boryeong and Rotorua were to embark on a "sister-city type relationship".

"An exchange of mud over five years was a gesture of goodwill and an expression of wanting to work in partnership," she said.

"The opportunity also exists to partner with other cities and countries that run iconic mud festivals, like they do in Scandinavian countries. There is kind of a mud partnership conversation happening globally."