Tauranga Arts Festival organisers are walking on air after receiving word the city is to host the world's newest luminarium.

Architects of Air, the British company that designs and makes the light-filled, walk-in, inflatable sculptures, had planned to send 2012 model Exxopolis but is instead dispatching Arboria, which will be just five months old when it arrives.

'It's a real win,” says festival director Jo Bond. 'Nothing else has changed – it still opens on October 16, ticket prices remain the same, and this is still the only place it will visit in the Bay of Plenty-Waikato region.

'Thanks to the generosity of Architects of Air we will be among the first in the world to experience Arboria.”

This luminarium, which pays homage to trees, includes a soundscape that evokes the Ecuadorian cloud forest and each dome bears its own stylised leaf motif. Three tree-like structures triangulate the main dome which is 10m high and inspired by an English cathedral.

Half the tickets for any one day are available for pre-sale with the rest as door sales. Entry is limited to 80 people every 30 minutes.

Luminariums, which are wheelchair friendly, have been touring the globe since 1992, visiting 43 countries on five continents and enchanting more than two million visitors.

Arboria, the company's twenty-second luminarium, will be inflated on Tauranga's waterfront.

See the full festival programme at www.taurangafestival.co.nz

Timed-entry tickets for the luminarium are on sale from Baycourt in Tauranga or ticketek.co.nz. Tickets purchased for Exxopolis are valid for Arboria.
The luminarium opens on October 16, while the Tauranga Arts Festival begins on October 22.