Leva Kusari performing her poetry for people swimming and relaxing by the lakeside at Eyegum Collective's Welcome to Nowhere festival. - Photo by Dylan Pyle
Anchoring the youth scene in Wellington since 2013, Eyegum is the collective behind San Fran’s beloved free Wednesday gig series, as well as festivals like Great Sounds Great and Welcome to Nowhere.
The Eyegum Wednesday team is a core team of five, with the overall collective expanding during busy seasons to a huge group of friends helping out.
Founding member Joel Cosgrove established Eyegum over a decade ago with his wide-reaching group of friends. It included collaborators such as local legend Ben Jones, and members of local bands Mermaidens and Hans Pucket.
Maple Syrup playing an Eyegum Music Collective house show in Wellington, 2015. Left to right: Vera Ellen, Tarquin Smith and Jerry Ramirez.
“At the time, many local venues were closing down,” Cosgrove says, noting the end of crucial spots such as Bodega and Mighty Mighty. Fewer venues meant fewer opportunities, and less local gig culture. Seeking to fill the gap for more grassroots performances, Cosgrove and friends began hosting house parties over the next year and a half, recruiting their favourite bands to provide tunes and organically becoming the Eyegum Collective.
Secret house party posters from 2015. The first poster featured The Bent Folk, Groeni and Saturnian Noise Collective (AKL) performing at Innermost Gardens. The second poster featured All Seeing Hand, Sere (AKL) and Womb at Newtown Bowling Club.
Eyegum Wednesdays
By 2016, these parties had gained a reputation within the gigging community. That community frequently discussed how San Fran functioned as the hub of local live music but, despite its popularity, its Wednesday nights were consistently dead. Gig-goers could never be sure if there would be anything on. Events that did go ahead were poorly promoted and attended. Thus, as the collective began “seeing gaps in the scene and deciding to fill them,” reviving San Fran’s Wednesdays became their next mission.
BADTAB joined on stage by Wellington legend Tree Man during an Eyegum Wednesday in 2025. - Vanessa Cone
Often referred to as just Eyegum, but technically “the weird cousin” of Eyegum itself, Eyegum Wednesdays became free gigs, featuring up-and-coming bands, held every week during university trimesters. These nights came about through a deal between the collective and San Fran owner Ziggy. The venue agreed to pay Eyegum $400 at the series’ inception, later raised to $600, to split between performers, photographers, designers, DJs and MCs for the night. In these early days, some shows would be empty, run on a small drum riser with only half the venue accessible, whilst others would pack out the same space to over 150 people.
'Pridegum' poster designed by Asia Martusia for an Eyegum Wednesday during Pōneke's pride month in 2025. Featured bands are Lavendar Menace, Cordelia's and DJ Will O' Wisp.
Slowly but surely, the shows became popular enough that when Live Nation bought out half of San Fran, they committed to further support. When Covid lockdowns lifted, Wednesdays immediately surged in popularity, as young people who were new to the city fought to finally experience it in earnest. In recent years, Wednesdays have also received arts and culture funding from the Wellington City Council.
Long-standing Eyegum organiser Mia Bean, who joined the team around 2018, sees Wednesdays as a chance to “get everyone ready for the weekend without having to spend all their money before”. She joined the team around 2018, working alongside local identity Kenny Charlton to programme and host.
“I remember coming in and thinking the scene was so dude-heavy and boring. There was not enough representation, so we made that a real priority,” says Bean.
Jujulipps (AKL) at Great Sounds Great in 2024; cruelly frontwoman Haylee Hailwood playing an Eyegum Wednesday. - Photos by Vanessa Cone; Elise Lanigan
Over time, Eyegum’s line-ups became more diverse, pointedly supporting a wider range of genders, sexualities and ethnicities to back up their goal: “to put on cool events for the community, by the community”.
Collaborator Arran Cargill-Brown sees Wednesdays as “the pulse point of the week where the scene can congregate”. He notes how aspirational it is for many young bands, with even the local high schoolers from the all-ages scene and Smokefree Rockquest discussing playing shows when they’re older.
Recent member Haylee Hailwood testifies to the brand recognition. “They know about Eyegum and when they turn 18 they’re coming to Wednesdays,” she says.
Housewitches performing at an Eyegum Wednesday - Elise Lanigan
Hailwood joined the team at the start of 2025 alongside Baxter Gray, with Eyegum actively aiming to bring in fresh blood as “people get older and the audience doesn’t”. When looking for new organisational members, to keep the collective’s work relevant Bean needs people who are “super passionate about the music scene, but also have some organisational/admin capabilities.”
This ever-evolving team take turns MCing Wednesdays each week, and their unique narration styles are a big reason the events are so beloved. Backstage, the bands follow pre-show rituals started by Mia and Kenny in the late 2010s, chanting songs from High School Musical and asking each performer the pivotal question: “What do you want to bring to the performance?” Out front, the MCs encourage audience interaction. They build chants moving from whispers to screams, keeping it “peppy” to get gig-goers engaging fully with the music instead of worrying about what others are thinking. Eyegum establishes a quirky presence on social media, posting weird and wonderful interviews and eclectic original art.
Finding artists for the Wednesday line-ups is increasingly collaborative, following the core team’s recent expansion. “We all have quite a broad taste in music,” Hailwood says, “we cover the whole spectrum and know about different sections of the scene”.
Together, they suggest headliners and ask around for opening acts, often inspired by getting among other Welly events like Newtown Fest and Cuba Dupa. Their website’s public application form is also bombarded with applications that provide some hidden gems.
“It’s the best feeling ever when you book a band who have never played any gigs, and then a few months later they’re doing really well,” says Gray.
Eyegum Wednesday poster from March 2021 featuring DARTZ, Sure Boy and DJ Panda (poster by DARTZ vocalist and cartoonist Daniel Vernon); The Beths playing an early Eyegum Wednesday in May 2016 (photo by Brett Hodge).
Notable examples include DARTZ playing a Wednesday as their second-ever Wellington show, or The Beths performing one of the earliest dates in the series to less than 50 people.
Kindekel DJing an Eyegum Wednesday, 2025. - Photo by Mak @disposablebelief
DJs are also an increasingly valued part of Eyegum Wednesdays. “It’s an entry point to get into DJing,” says Gray. “It’s not a club night, it’s not high stakes.”
Bean describes their involvement as a recent purposeful cultural shift to keep people dancing after a band’s set, aiming to hit “a certain mass of people to come back in after they’ve had their cigarettes” on the busy San Fran balcony.
New creatives in the visual design and photography spaces are frequently invited to work on Eyegum’s promotional material. Some are friends, some are online applicants, some are chosen from community recommendations. But they all share the goal of breaking into the Wellington scene.
“We don’t tell them what to do, we just give them the size, due date and bands,” Bean explains. “There are no rules to how you wanna make it, you’re allowed to experiment and also get paid to do it.”
Eyegum Free Wednesday posters. Left: No Sector, Eurydice and DJ Mellifera, October 2025 (design by Sian Nelson.). Right: DAFM (Destroy All False Metal), Crying Club and Insight, April 2023 (design by Rae Nel).
Welcome to Nowhere
Outside of Wednesdays, the Eyegum collective boasts an impressive repertoire of festival and event work. In 2017, after managing stages at the Chronophonium festival for the past five years, Cosgrove and the Eyegum circle realised simply that “if we didn’t put on a festival this year, we’d have nothing to do this summer”. They leased a farm site out in Mangamahu, near Palmerston North and Whanganui, to hold A Gathering In A Forest. The name intentionally topped any alphabetical event list, and made the team laugh with its awkward phrasing, before it later became Welcome to Nowhere. This of course references the Mint Chicks song, following a similar naming convention to spiritual predecessor festivals such as Neck of the Woods and The Others Way.
“I’d gone to every Eyegum Wednesday for a year straight and Joel was like, ‘do you wanna run a festival next year?’” Bean explains, having been thrown right into the deep end learning to run events. “There’s always stuff that goes wrong that you don’t expect … Each year the plan would adapt but then something new would go wrong. [Over time] we became better organisers, the weather was just the biggest struggle.”
One year, the PA exploded late at night during soundcheck, a day before the festival. Joel drove eight hours to Wellington and back to find a replacement, arriving early the next morning and getting no sleep for the rest of the weekend. Another year, an unfamiliar woman confronted him at 1am about naked gig-goers swimming in the lake. “You’ve got half-naked sluts in the lake! You can travel down the path of righteous or the path of evil, we don’t need to be seeing this,” she said. Cosgrove shrugs off the memory, thinking that perhaps the “half naked sluts in the lake” slogan could make for some memorable merchandise.
As the festival gained steam, Covid-19 struck, cancelling the 2021 festival altogether right after the stages were built. Cosgrove arrived at the site four hours late to a distressed team with “Good news and bad news … The bad news, the festival is cancelled, we’re going to level red tonight. The good news, I’ve got all the sponsored Jameson.” Despite the disappointment, the Eyegum organisers still made the most of their night, and ironically experienced their first year making any money thanks to receiving recovery funding.
Ty Segall at Welcome To Nowhere festival, 2023.
For more positive Welcome to Nowhere memories, Joel recalls the landowner Monty’s total amazement each year seeing such talented acts playing in his paddock. He also looks back fondly on the bonding experiences between performers and organisers alike, such as when Ty Segall’s keyboard player spent the day making custom bow and arrows, or when Monty enthusiastically shared his plans to use the land lease money for a hunting drone.
Nonetheless, the rising cost of living eventually forced the end of Welcome to Nowhere as it fell into debt. “2023 was like the apocalypse, and the first thing you stop spending on is expensive festival tickets,” Cosgrove says. Welcome to Nowhere ended the following year.
Great Sounds Great
However, the team quickly moved on to their smaller festival Great Sounds Great, held in the heart of Wellington city. This time, Eyegum took inspiration from Auckland’s intimate street festival The Others Way, deciding to take over several venues through Te Aro and Cuba Street. Cosgrove pioneered Great Sounds Great alongside co-curator Ben Jones, whom he describes affectionately as “the yin to my yang”. The festival operates as six to seven simultaneous gigs in contained venues, open to attendees with a singular wrist band for entry.
E.U.G (Everything Under God) performing at Valhalla during the Great Sounds Great festival in Pōneke, 2024. - Photo by Ashley Brown
“We called the first one ‘End of Year Fuck Yeah!’ but you can’t have swear-words on Facebook events,” says Bean. As a result, the following year it became Great Sounds Great, hailing from The Clean’s second EP title, which was the first record Joel’s child owned after it was given to them at a baby shower. It beat out several other weird and wonderful options, including Robot World, Festival? Yes! Dumb? No! and Slice of Aro.
Great Sounds Great proves much simpler to run than Welcome to Nowhere. Using existing venues solves any issues about toilets, water, and accommodation. The toughest part is dealing with the overlap of performers in multiple bands, who often have to finish one set and sprint to another, due to the tight-knit nature of Wellington’s music community.
Each year, the team add new spaces and broaden their sweep of artists to the festival. Notably, their Hotel Bristol stage in Cuba Mall revolves around acts from the previous year’s top Wednesday gigs. The idea is that the festival becomes a stepping stone to bigger indie shows for artists, allowing them to have a proven track record in the live setting.
Outside of the festival circuit, Eyegum has also run several scenic tours, where Cosgrove books like-minded acts together and manages them across the country. Usually, these are acts from different cities to ensure two hometown gigs. Their travel and accommodation is covered and Eyegum further help the performers to fundraise, creating an opportunity to strengthen both the musicians and the scenes they interact with. Their recent tour with Dale Kerrigan and Wiri Donna was a roaring success, with Cosgrove joking that Kerrigan’s heavy sound may have influenced Wiri Donna’s previously more indie approach after six shows together.
So after over a decade of hard work, building such a reputation in Te Whanganui-a-Tara, the question remains: Where does the Eyegum name actually come from? When it came to naming the collective, there was a list of names that Bean affectionately describes as “The worst thing I’ve ever seen,” with options from “Epic Times” and “Pizazz” to “Shazam” and “Sound Healing”.
However, the real call was made by Maggie, the child of a friend of Cosgrove. At three years old, Maggie came up with Eyegum by saying their name backwards. “People come up with the craziest ideas for the meaning, like our eyes are glued to the stage … They’re way more rational,” Cosgrove jokes. But Eyegum is simply an auditory semordnilap (word or phrase spelt backwards).
Doing their part bit by bit for the Pōneke scene, the Eyegum Collective is a hard-working team that’s constantly evolving, and its past only gets the community even more excited for its future.