Tip Top Ice Cream Teddy Bears Picnic, 12pm to 4pm, 10 January 1999, North Hagley Park

One of the SummerTimes festival’s most enduringly popular events, the Tip Top Ice Cream Teddy Bears Picnic, will once again delight children and adults – not to mention their bears.

The ‘Big Day Out’ for all bears and their owners takes place early in the new year in the beautiful surroundings of North Hagley Park by Victoria Lake. An abundance of music, games, magic and theatre is on offer as well as numerous rides and free face painting.

The event features two stage areas within the park. On the smaller Griffins stage at the westend of the park, The Court Jesters and magician Brian Penman will take turns at entertaining every half hour while on the main stage the audience can enjoy performances from the Garden City Big Band, Fiddlesticks and the Natural Magic Pirate Band

One of the highlights of the main stage entertainment will undoubtably be a short play featuring many familiar bear characters. “Goldilocks and The Three Bears” has been specially produced for the Tip Top Ice Cream Teddy Bears Picnic by The Malthouse Theatre Company.

The Tip Top Ice Cream Teddy Bears Picnic concludes with the ‘Great Bear Throw Up’ – an annual highlight of the event. Bears and their owners gather near the stage and with the guidance of the MC, all the bears in the park are thrown into the air at the same time, creating a sky full of bears and a bear scramble afterwards!

Site Information

Free, secure cycle parking will be available under the trees by the cycleway. Car parking is available in Hagley Park for $3, enter off the Westbound lane of Harper Avenue (gates open at 11am and close at 5pm). Food, refreshments and free squirts of sunblock will be available on site. Those attending are asked not to park on the grassed strip along Park Terrace or walk across the golf course.

or check the website at www.summertimes.org.nz