Kōwhai Grove: Tyan’s Latest Festival Spectacle

Words by Ella Gibson

If you ever set foot into TyanHaus in Christchurch, you will have been acquainted with the incredible Tyan community. However if you didn’t, don’t worry because the Tyan collective is back with its next festival spectacle, Kōwhai Grove.

For Yo Vocal, Ella Gibson sat down with Tyan’s Ruben Gordon to talk about the upcoming project, Tyan’s past, present, and future, as well as honouring the late fellow Tyan legend, Will Smithies.

Kōwhai Grove is TyanHaus’s and Disfigured Frequency’s latest creative embarkation. Saturday 13th of January, 2024, will welcome a one day, one night festival located in Waimate, Waitaha. The festival will showcase local talent in Ōtautahi and exhibit the relationships and connections formed over the past few years within the Tyan community.

Tyan identifies as a DAO, which stands for a decentralised autonomous organisation. Ruben explains that a DAO “gets rid of the formal structures that we see in businesses which are hierarchical.” Whenever I had the privilege of stepping into the former Tyan residence, I was met with an immediate endearing welcome. The non-hierarchical and collaborative nature that was cultivated by the Tyan collective would inevitably permeate into any visitor’s Tyan experience.

Closing in 2023’s winter, TyanHaus opened its warehouse doors in May of 2021. With TyanHaus’s birth, a new hub for Ōtautahi’s arts and culture scene arrived. “It was never a well-rehearsed business model. There was no real point of doing the whole thing than to experiment and have fun. I think people felt that because when they came in, it was not “hey we’re TyanHaus, this is how it goes here.” It was “hey, look at this space, what do you guys want to get up to?” So everyone who did collaborate with us actually had a chance to collaborate rather than just rent the venue and we would put a gig on,” Ruben discloses.

The festival’s location in Waimate holds a special place in Tyan’s heart. When I asked Ruben how Kōwhai Grove’s conception came about, he shared that “Will, who was a driving force of the DAO, has family with a plot of land that he has gone to since he was a kid. He always used to mention it saying “someday bro we’ll throw a festival here, it’ll be sick!” And that was his last mission and we have picked up mostly where he has left off.”

Throughout the Haus’ residency, the Tyan collective quickly found a groove for hosting events and throwing parties, even launching their own music promotions arm, Disfigured Frequency. All of Tyan’s past festive feats have prepared the collective for this next endeavour. “We threw loads of gigs and through that, we got to meet loads of individuals in the underground music scene here who taught us so much by doing stuff with us and by us just seeing how they do it,” Ruben shares.

Ruben said that the Kōwhai Grove model seemed to instantly fit. “It always seemed like the ideal gig to throw because we have loved throwing one night parties inside but we love going to festivals much more than we love going to gigs. So it has always been the one thing on the pedestal that we have always dreamed of doing. Then we had a way we could, so we’re giving it a crack,” Ruben says.

Broadening on why running their own festival has always been something that Tyan wants to embark on, Ruben shares that “for most of us that have been going to festivals for quite a few years, there really is not an experience that parallels in the sense of being free and being somewhere that is a unique, not just in the location sense, but in the vibe sense from what you experience in the day-to-day life. If you can do it somewhere that is not ten minutes from your house and is overnight, somewhere where you can really relax into the environment and get into that space is the reason why we all love it so much. To be able to provide that to other people and to create our own unique space is just a dream.”

I asked Ruben what the Kōwhai Grove day-to-night-to-day festival experience will look like. Ruben shares that “ideally, they will experience what we did over two years of having the warehouse and 80% of them we met through the warehouse. So it is again condensing what we have learned, who we’ve learned it with, and putting it on display. Mainly that there won’t be skateboarding, which is the one thing. No skateboarding, no NFTs, just the party side of what we did at the warehouse.”

The festival will be an alcohol-free event. “At least half of the collective that are putting on this festival, I would say, have fallen in love with festivals like Twisted Frequency, or more recently, Synchronicity. These festivals use this alcohol-free model and they do so with great success. People generally feel a lot more present in the festival, which is something that we would love to be able to do on our own.” Ruben adds to say that “a lot of the reasons that we would rather throw our own parties and do that in the warehouse than go out is because of the alcohol abuse that is prevalent in the youth of Aotearoa. We simply don’t want to promote that. It is much more about the music, the connection, and the relationships we have within the space than getting sent, vomiting, and forgetting the night away.”

26 acts will grace the Kōwhai stage including Ebb, Goose, Jay Okay, MJ, Patella, Redbin, Seeing Doubles, and Young Ghost, to name a few. The lineup is an ode to how influential and special the Tyan community was, is, and will continue to be to so many. “I still don’t think I realise the impact that we had with our warehouse. But it is incredibly rewarding to be able to talk to people that I used to not know and look up to in the music scene here, who now want to be involved in the festival. To see the way people react to wanting to do this and, hopefully, the way people react to wanting to come has just been mind-blowing. We are just wanting to have a party with our mates. The fact that the circle of mates has gotten bigger to the point where it is the artists that I would pay money to go and see in town anyway is something that is really cool,” says Ruben.

Aotearoa is blessed with providing the backdrop for many summer festivals. I asked Ruben how Kōwhai Grove will differ from other festivals. “I think this one will differ mainly for those involved. We’re trying to do something super family-based. This is not us trying to blow anything out of the water with a huge festival with massive international artists. I personally know everyone on the lineup and that was kind of the point because that is why we loved the warehouse so much. By the end, we knew everyone that came through the door. That was what was special about it, everyone kind of felt like a local. So to be able to do that on a bigger scale is what we’re trying to do. We really hope that maybe the audience that doesn't know us personally can feel that as well,” Ruben shares.

Kōwhai Grove’s near fruition will honour the late Will Smithies. Will poured his heart into providing a platform for so many creatives at TyanHaus. “Doing this in the first place was something that we were kind of on the fence about because it was so much his baby. Everything in the warehouse got 80% of its progress from him and his passion and drive to do those projects. It has definitely been an adjustment to do stuff without him. It has been really educational but also like, f**k me, that guy did a lot! Honouring him is just doing it, trying to keep it realistic, and to have people involved that know his story and know why it is so special to the people putting it on. It is still an extended memorial for us in some way, to be able to put on a gig since having lost him,” Ruben discloses.

When asking Ruben why people should come to Kōwhai Grove, he replied by saying that “because we’re new and we’re having fun doing this. I think you could go to a big festival and you kind of know what you’re going to get. But it is not going to be potentially as honest as the way we do things. We are experimenting with everything we do and we’re having a s**t load of fun while we do it. I think that shows in the work and in the environment that we create.

In 2024, on Saturday 13th of January, Waitaha is going to be blessed with the presence of a fresh, transparent, and brilliant lineup of Ōtautahi-based local talent located in Waimate. All of which will be organised by the Tyan collective that have proved themselves as champions of supporting and bolstering creative communities. To become a part of the Tyan family and experience their masterly gig prowess, look up “Kōwhai Grove'' on Facebook or Instagram and follow the link to Cosmic Ticketing to purchase your ticket.