Celebrating its 22nd year in 2012, Parachute Festival has well and truly earned its place on the Kiwi summer radar. Drawing a regular crowd of around 25,000 each year, Parachute remains one of the largest music festivals in the Southern Hemisphere.

Appearing in 1992 amongst the vacant farmlands of Waikanae, the first incarnation of Parachute Festival drew a crowd of 1200. As the crowds grew, the festival shifted upstream to Matamata’s Totara Springs campground. The Springs’ natural amphitheatre played host to the festival’s first international headliner in 1995: burgeoning CCM rock band DC Talk.

As numbers continued to grow, Parachute soon outgrew Totara Springs, moving to Hamilton’s Mystery Creek Events Centre in 2004.

Eight years later sees Parachute Festival 2012 boasting over 100 bands across four stages. Once again, tent cities will sprawl across the Hamilton landscape as far as the eye can see, as around 25,000 punters celebrate four days of summer, God and rock n’ roll.

Music aside, the long weekend of Parachute 2012 is crammed full of bustling village life, carnival rides, the return of the Parachute’s Got Talent competition, an indie craft market and much more.

The festival is also continuing its long tradition of championing social justice initiatives, playing host to Women’s Refuge and partnering with World Vision to seek 450 new sponsorships for the village of Tubehoneza, Rwanda. 2012 also marks the return of NOISE, a training conference within the festival offering world-class input from festival headliners.

Touted as ‘The Most Magnificent Mish-Mash of the summer’, Parachute 2012 is truly living up to its title.