Tauranga and Western Bay students have no excuse not to get involved with this year’s Tauranga Arts Festival – not only are student ticket prices available to many shows, the festival has also come up with a new Arts Passport.

To obtain a passport, student ID holders merely 'like' the the festival’s Facebook page to receive updates on a day’s passport shows. Limited tickets to these shows will be available for $5 one hour before curtain-up.

“It’s a chance to try something new without a huge investment,” festival director Jo Bond says. “Although I would also encourage making use of our student ticket rates to make sure you don’t miss out on anything you really want to see.

“And with $5 student tickets available to all the Speaker Programme sessions on 2-3 November, we’re hoping that our thought-leaders of tomorrow fill their boots.”

Student ticket prices apply to some great Kiwi theatre – Still Life with Chickens, Wild Dogs Under my Skirt, Mr Red Light, Cellfish (including a Labour Day matinee) and The South Afreakins, which plays only in Katikati and Te Puke – plus the unique, award-winning Portraits in Motion from Germany.

For music lovers there is A Synthesized Universe, which combines music, graphics and video in an otherworldly tour of our universe, folk-alt singer-songwriter Reb Fountain, and modern blues-rock band Milly Tabak and The Miltones.

Renowned financial writer Mary Holm appears on November 3 in a talk aimed squarely at a younger audience – Money Talks: Smashed Avocado – when she will talk to Rosie Dawson-Hewes about KiwiSaver, student loans, home buying and credit card debt and answer questions from the audience.

Other Speaker events of interest to students include Headlands, a panel discussion about anxiety and depression, Standing Up (diversity), Start Listening (racism) and Getting Louder (climate change).

The new, Fringe Village event on October 26 will celebrate all kinds of artistic endeavour, from poetry to painters, film-makers to musicians and will include buskers and stalls.