[6] The Festival Gala Night - True Stories Told Live: Under Cover event gets writers in seven minutes to deliver a 'true story without scripts or props' in 2018 this featured people from England, Ireland, India, South Africa, the US, and New Zealand including Susie Boyt, Lisa Dwan, Gigi Fenster (South Africa/NZ), Alex Ross, Damon Salesa, Tom Scott, Shashi Tharoor, and Jenny Zhang.

[9] Musicians appearing at the festival included Jeff Tweedy, from Wilco, Shayne Carter from Straitjacket Fits, mathematician and concert pianist Eugenia Cheng, English hip-hop artist, writer and poet Akala, the Auckland Philharmonia Orchestra, composer Kenneth Young, and tenor Simon O'Neill.

Oro was curated by Ruby Solly and included Becky Manawatu, Ross Calman, Anahera Gildea, Arihia Latham, Nic Low, Kiri Piahana-Wong, and essa may ranapiri.

Gina Cole curated Talanoa with Tusiata Avia, David Eggleton, Oscar Kightley, Selina Tusitala Marsh, Karlo Mila, and Victor Rodger.

[10][12][13] Other writers included Isabel Allende, Marilynne Robinson, Yiyun Li, Mohamed Hassan, Sue Kedgley, Ngahuia te Awekotuku, Claudia Orange, Ghazaleh Golbakhsh, Brian Easton, Monique Fiso, and Charlotte Grimshaw.

[15] Alice Te Punga Somerville presented the Michael King Memorial Lecture where she drew upon her book Two Hundred and Fifty Ways to Start an Essay about Captain Cook (2020).

[10] The closing event was called A Worship of Honoured Writers and featured Fiona Kidman, Patricia Grace, Witi Ihimaera, Vincent O'Sullivan, CK Stead, Brian Turner, and Albert Wendt.