Downtown Invercargill A Hive Of Activity Over The Weekend

Kids will be taking over Esk Street this weekend with games and activities all day long.

The ‘Kids in the City’ initiative is a collaboration between ILT Kidzone, the Invercargill City Council, along with Great South, What’s On Invers, Sport Southland, Healthy Families Invercargill and Invercargill Central Ltd.

There will be skid bikes, mini golf, astro ball, giant Jenga, air hockey, face painting, a pop up play space, sea saw and slides, table tennis as well as live music and food.

City Centre co-ordinator Shru Shrivastava said Great South approached council with the fantastic idea after it became apparent they would no longer be able to hold ILT Kidzone this year due to COVID-19.

But it’s not all just for the kids. Invercargill Central Limited would also be offering heritage talks and showing off some of the awesome demolition work from the City Block project.

“Check out the demolition that is taking place, there’s lots of machinery for kids to see,” Shru said.

Some of the big murals that have been painted onto the hoarding panels around the site will also be up for people to view.

Shru said an archaeologist from New Zealand Heritage Properties will be based under the old Max shop veranda and can answer any archaeology questions.

The new artefacts recently found on site will also be on display there.

The Information Hub for the new City Block development will be open on Saturday from 11am – 1pm and while the kids are entertained, it was a good time to view plans of the development, learn about the history of the site, check out demolition photos, view computer renders of the development and watch the demolition time-lapse video.

The information hub is located in the Bank of New South Wales Building (old Pumpkin Patch shop), and access is via the wooden doors on Dee Street. The ‘Kids in the City’ event runs both days from 10am until 2pm.