Nunfest poster

This poster advertised Nunfest 96 which was the 15th anniversary celebration of the iconic Flying Nun record label. Gigs were held in Dunedin, Christchurch, Wellington and Auckland. It was a huge undertaking for a small label and ‘only the most ardent fan would have tried to see it all’.*

Musician Chris Knox probably designed the poster. Knox had an enormous influence on New Zealand’s alternative music scene from the late 1970s.

Music fan

The poster was collected by dedicated music fan Terry Leamy who ‘got the live gig bug after seeing Madness in 1981, and then after finally cottoning on to the Flying Nun label around 1990, regularly went to see Flying Nun bands coming through Wellington’ from the 1990s to early 2000s, mainly at Bar Bodega. He cut most gig posters either from the wall outside the bar or from hoardings around the city: ‘it seemed obvious at the time to grab a poster of the gig I had just been to, usually on the way home, fortified by the craft beers of the bar against the occasional snigger or querulous look of passers-by at such an ostensibly inebriated and/or juvenile activity.’ His actions helped save what is generally ephemeral - band posters are usually pasted over by the next week's batch of posters and rarely survive.

Leamy’s idea was to ‘decorate one’s spacious bachelor pad or basement Dunedin Sound shrine’ with his poster collection. However as this dream had not yet eventuated, and the long-term preservation of them had become more important, donating them to a suitable archive was the next step. Some of the posters were worse for wear after being cut off walls with best-guess cuts if subsequent posters had already been pasted over, or if the site was too public and/or it was day time and a quick cut and rip was necessitated, sometimes meaning that multiple copies have been patched to create a complete poster. Most posters were also soaked to remove extraneous posters behind them or pasted on top. His extensive collection can be found in the Alexander Turnbull Library in Wellington.

*Steven Shaw (1 Oct 2014). Nunfest 96 - The Empire Tavern, Dunedin. Audioculture website.