Keep your eyes on the prize

“Kia ora - what's this Ignite contest about then eh?", we hear you ask. “And why do people keep talking about marshmallows?”

Our Ignite evenings always start with a contest (start time: 6.15pm), where you team up and compete against each other in a challenge revealed on the night.

George Bernard Shaw reportedly observed “we don't stop playing because we grow old; we grow old because we stop playing”, and we believe that the Ignite contest is a great way to warm up before the main event, and unleash some serious creative energy!

Our previous contests have seen teams build towers out of spaghetti and marshmallows, construct the ultimate paper airplane, and piece together stories from newspapers.

This time, we’ve taking the contest to a whole new level. The game is simple, the rules are few, and it will be a contest of pure creativity and engineering prowess. Oh, and you’ll need to unleash your inner child. Or borrow someone else’s.

You can also win seriously cool prizes for your creative efforts, and for Ignitewelli #4, we’re thankful to Mojo Coffee, Whittakers Chocolate, Fishhead Magazine and O'Reilly for generously donating the excellent prizes we have up for grabs.

Don’t worry if you’re not taking part in the Ignite Contest - everyone who registers will go into the draw for some of these prizes too.

We would also appreciate it if you could bring along any spare change to donate to our chosen charity: the Child Cancer Foundation. They rely on the generosity of big-hearted New Zealanders to help them do their excellent work, so please remember to bring a donation - it would mean a lot to us.