Parachute Music Festival was a Christian music festival held annually in New Zealand between 1992 - 2014. Originally starting in Waikanae, the event moved to Matamata in 1995, and then finally to Mystery Creek Events Centre, Hamilton, New Zealand where it was held from 2004 - 2014. The three-day festival was run by Parachute Music, and ran annually in late January, on the weekend before Auckland Anniversary Day,. The event was one of the largest Christian music festivals outside of the United States and it was one of the largest multi-day festivals in the Southern Hemisphere. As well as musicians, it also featured guest speakers. About Parachute Music Festival attracted around 25,000 people each year. The largest crowd came in 2007, with 27,813 attendees. Most people who attended stayed on-site in tents and caravans, and a large village area supplied food, amenities and band merchandise. Each year artists applied to play at Parachute which gave an opportunity for musicians to have their music heard by a large audience at a popular event. While many local bands from New Zealand applied, Parachute received applications from all over the world. Parachute Music also invited a number of headline artists each year to perform at the festival. Around 100 bands from many different genres played at Parachute each year. The festival was aimed at a wide demographic ranging from families to teenagers. It is classified as a non-denominational Christian event, with enforced bans on drugs or alcohol and unmarried couples being discouraged from tenting together. However, a large number of non-Christian people did attend. Because Parachute was a non-denominational Christian festival, events such as Catholic Mass and Anglican Eucharist were often included in the festival programme. The Festival was covered by most New Zealand media and was a well known event of the New Zealand summer. It was also supported by and had partnerships with a number of businesses and organisations - Some examples are Coca-Cola, Sanitarium, V, Pepsi, Vodafone and The NZ Police. Parachute often partnered with charities such as World Vision. Parachute Music worked with World Vision from 2006 until its final year to sponsor a village in Rwanda called Tubehoneza. Over the last six festivals, festival-goers donated $303,000 to the area. This money was used to build five water tanks, three classrooms, a maternity unit and a health centre for Tubehoneza. In addition, 1,900 children were sponsored through the festival.