Lakes Festival has landed a major booking for 2026.
The Ōtautahi Christchurch festival is returning for its sixth edition this December, taking over the city’s iconic Hagley Park.
Leading today’s first artist announcement is American superstar DJ Armand Van Helden, heading to Aotearoa New Zealand for his first-ever South island performance.
A regular entrant in DJ Magazine‘s Top 100 DJs countdown for decades, Van Helden is indisputably one of the biggest DJs of his generation.
From the mid-90s onwards, Van Helden became renowned as a master of the remix, reworking tracks by acts as diverse as New Order, Faithless, Tori Amos, Puff Daddy, Daft Punk, and The Rolling Stones.
The global house legend also shows no signs of slowing down, recently dropping “This Ain’t Love”, a collaboration with Raphi and George Reid, earlier this year. “This Ain’t Love” has racked up almost 500,000 streams on Spotify alone since its release.
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In 2014, Van Helden took Rolling Stone through his life and career in 15 songs, talking collaborations with Daft Punk, Tori Amos, and more.
From closer to home, the likes of iconic soul star Ladi6 will take to the stage at the festival.
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Tickets to Lakes Festival 2026 go on sale to the general public on Wednesday, July 15th at 5:30pm local time. A pre-sale will take place the previous day (July 14th) at 5:30pm local time (sign up here).
General admission tickets start from $189, while pre-sale tickets are a little cheaper at $179.
More information about Lakes Festival 2026 can be found here.
It’s not Van Helden’s only confirmed New Zealand date of the year. He’ll also stop by Hidden Valley Festival 2026, held in Matakana in the North island, in December, where he’ll play alongside Dimension, EFFY, MPH, and more.
