Wellington Sevens
 | |
| Sport | Rugby sevens |
|---|---|
| Founded | 2000 |
| No. of teams | 16 |
| Country | New Zealand |
| Most recent champion(s) |
 New Zealand (2016) |
| Most titles |
New Zealand (9 titles) |
The Wellington Sevens or New Zealand Sevens is an annual rugby sevens tournament held at Westpac Stadium in Wellington, New Zealand. The tournament is the fourth on the Sevens World Series circuit, and is generally held on the first weekend of February on the weekend following the USA Sevens tournament. The Wellington Sevens includes teams from 16 countries.
The event attracts over 30,000 spectators annually. The tournament has become Wellington's largest sporting event, and one of New Zealand's leading sporting events.
Atmosphere
It also has a reputation for a party atmosphere, with a large proportion of attendees choosing to wear fancy dress. Recent years have seen large groups of costumes that vary from Fred Flintstone and Wilma to Care Bears, dance troops, wrestlers and many other interesting costumes. More recently items of recent media interest or advertisements form a key theme. Saddam Hussein, Osama Bin Laden, George Bush have made appearances. Movie figures such as Men in Black (MIB) and Austin Powers are crowd favorites and an impersonator of Austin has been a regular feature each year performing to the crowd.
In 2009 Air New Zealand, one of the major sponsors for the Wellington sevens, introduced a 'Beads for Kisses' ambient media campaign as a yearly sevens ritual. Over 100,000 strings of Mardi gras style beads were given to the crowd, who could then exchange the beads for kisses from other participants. This was followed in 2010 with the addition of kissing booths.
