Venue

Tākina, is the nation's new meeting place.  It's a place of welcoming, learning and sharing.

It's a new home for world-class exhibitions that draw people from afar and conferences that change how the whole world thinks.  The Convention Centre sits across two levels and is purpose-built for international and local conferences, with capacity for up to 1,600 delegates.

The meaning of Tākina

Tākina means to invoke, to summon, to connect, to bring forth, in te reo Māori. In Wellington, the most powerful force that is summoned here is the wind.

Te Whanganui-a-Tara (Wellington Harbour) is renowned for its unique and diverse winds. Some days they rage across the harbour, blowing everything before them. At other times, they are soft, welcoming, calm. We treasure and invoke each of them, because together they make Wellington a unique place.

Those winds are a metaphor for magic, exuberance, sharing, and ideas. The winds express the shift of knowledge from one generation to another. They move things forward. They carry truths and viewpoints here from the universe and move them on to others, thousands of miles away.