The event was the culmination of years of planning and debate surrounding the need for a combined regional museum and art gallery.

[citation needed] ArtsPost is located on Victoria Street next to the museum and occupies Hamilton’s former Post and Telegraph office.

Hamilton City Council purchased the building in 1992 to create a high profile facility for the promotion of the visual arts.

Waikato Museum offers a range of exhibitions (curated in-house and touring), as well as a full complement of education and public programmes.

Waikato Museum’s education, collections and research, and public programmes have four area of focus: art, social history, science, and tangata whenua.

Funded by a grant from the Lotteries Commission, For Us They Fell tells the untold stories of the Waikato men who served in the Great War and the families they left behind.

Participants enjoy a presentation before being led on a tour to the bat-nesting site and can have encounters with longtailed bats, glow worms, shortfin eels and other native species.