The much loved Wellington Advent Calendar has gone live for its official tenth year, this time featuring an animated version of Wellington artist Ellie Compton’s work.
Celebrating the festive season, the online graphic was created by Wellington artist Ellie Compton, who impressively drew the entire graphic by hand then digitised it online with little opening doors to replicate an advent calendar.
The calendar offers 24 deals for businesses around Wellington. The online advent is updated daily, with visitors encouraged to hunt through the busy ‘Wellington Winds’ landscape to find the doors and claim a prize.
Compton has done several murals around Wellington, but this is the first to be digitised and animated.
“Loads of iconic Wellington locations are dotted throughout the art. They ring the harbour and direct the viewer to the Christmas tree which provides the heart of the piece,” Compton says.
WellingtonNZ general manager Anna Calver says the idea behind the original advent calendar was to help boost the traditionally slower summer holiday period for businesses. That reasoning remains valid, but the calendar has also turned into something of a Wellington Christmas tradition.
“Wellingtonians and visitors to the city know they’ll get once a year deals to enjoy right through till the end of February. They also get to revel in the whole advent calendar experience which is designed to surprise and delight.
“And showcasing the work on an incredible local artist is like a 25th advent deal where you get to appreciate and explore a uniquely Wellington artwork.”
Since the Wellington Advent Calendar’s inception in 2010, the website has had more than 1.6 million visits, with around 600,000 discount vouchers for the region’s top products and experiences downloaded.
The first advent calendar in 2010 attracted 114,330 visits to the website. Voucher downloads weren’t recorded for that year but in the second year, 2011, 56,00 vouchers were downloaded.
Last year, the advent calendar had 153,118 page-visits, with nearly 93,000 vouchers downloaded.
