What is New Music Pasifika?
New Music Pasifika will help provide funding for Pasifika artists to professionally record a single, create visual content to promote the single, and other promotion costs to increase New Zealand audience awareness and engagement with the audio and video content.
As of January 2024, the mandatory 10% Artist Creation Fee amounting up to $1,000 plus GST (if applicable), will be appended to your grant and disbursed exclusively in the final drawdown. This fee pertains to internal creative services provided to the project by the artist. Consequently, the New Music Pasifika funding grant of $10,000 will include an additional maximum payment of up to $1,000, resulting in a total funding amount of up to $11,000.
The first New Music Pasifika round was held in January 2019, and was created to boost NZ On Air’s reach to under-served audiences, with Pacific audiences being identified as under-served in our ‘Where Are The Audiences’ research in 2018.
Unlike New Music Single funding, New Music Pasifika has no entry threshold criteria for applying and the fund is open to all Pasifika identifying artists.
As of January 2025, all Music funding applications must include an initial budget outlining your expected costs. This is to help assessors understand what you will be using the funding for and allows applicants to budget their project prior to receiving funding.
Successful applicants can now claim any eligible expenses from the date the funding round opens, instead of from the date the funding round closes.
Read below for what is required for each drawdown instalment:
Drawdown 1: $8,000 – Advance
- Read and sign your Funding Agreement letter (this is sent to the applicant's email address who applied for the funding)
- Submit the Initial Budget for your single that is approved by the NZ On Air Music team
- Read and sign the Safe Spaces Agreement
- Provide your invoice for this $8,000 instalment
Drawdown 2: $2,000 – Advance
- Evidence that you have completed your audio track and video content with the correct NZ On Air logo applied in accordance with our accreditation requirements
- Confirmed release date for the single
- A written update on the creative progress of the Single and the work done to date
- Cost Report showing your expenditure to date against the Initial Budget
- Provide your invoice for this $2,000 instalment
Drawdown 3: $1,000 – Advance (with Artist Creation Fee)
- Evidence that you have released your single, video content and completed promotion
- A written update on the creative progress of the Single and the work done to complete the Single
- Final Cost Report showing your expenditure to date against the Initial Budget
- Provide us with a Marketing and Promotion report in accordance with our requirements outlined
- Provide your invoice for the $1,000 Artist Creation Fee
If you do not have Excel or Numbers, please click here to use the Google Sheets online to fill in your Application Budget.
When using Google Sheets, please go to the top left corner to click "File" then "Save as Google Sheets" to duplicate this template to your Google Drive. You can then fill it out with your budget costs, then link to the sheets OR download as a Microsoft Excel file to upload into the application.
New Music Pasifika Feb/March
Applications Open: Thursday 13 February
Applications Close: Thursday 6 March, 4pm
Results Published: Thursday 3 April