12/07/2026
Kia ora e te whānau. Some of you know, I have spoken up in a number of spaces, fighting to change something to make it fair for local artists where, in my opinion, it currently is not.
It’s become clear that I cannot continue this fight and speak freely without reprimand, from within The Historic Village.
With that being said I have to share the news that after almost 7 years here, Phreaze Factory (PFC Musicwear, Pasefika Haven, The Purple Lab - Phreaze Factory, Phreaze Factory Custom Prints) will be closing its physical doors at Historic Village Tauranga at the end of the day on Saturday 25th July and moving home/online (aside from special events and market stalls etc).
It wasn’t an easy decision - I mean, my son has practically grown up here, I was heavily pregnant with him when I opened the first shop! But it’s now become a necessary move to continue the fight, which I can speak about in more detail once we are off-site. This information will also be distributed through public posts on my personal page rather than business pages.
I know some of you might be disappointed that I will no longer hold this space for the community, but I hope you can respect how important it is to me to stand up for people, including myself, but also many others, especially when it comes to things like (in my opinion) bullying. If you know me well, you would also understand that I would never compromise my voice for anything, especially when it comes to protecting people.
This closure means our recording booth and DJ booth for Koha will unfortunately be gone but we’re working with some other cool projects and spaces in Tauranga that will hopefully fill that void asap. We will keep you posted!
The beginners Guitar and Music Theory, T Shirt Printing, Sign Making, Beatmaking IN PERSON workshops will no longer be available but we will continue most of those ONLINE through The Purple Lab Online Community and occasionally in person at community and youth centres, and other awesome art spaces around Tauranga Moana as well.
PFC Musicwear, PF Custom Prints & Pasefika Haven will all continue to operate online (we’ll be setting up at home and printing & processing from there) so you’ll still be able to support all of the local small businesses, artisans and our Pasefika aiga that we stock by buying them from our website or at our pop up shops.
You’ll be able to catch us at events, market stalls and really more places out in the community now with a bunch of time freed up!
I just want to say a massive thank you to everyone that has supported us over the years. The many conversations over the counter or in the lab, to me are priceless and I’ll miss those the most! We especially love celebrating your achievements after workshops so we will keep tabs on socials and continue to share as much as we can going forward!
We’ll be making a heap of upgrades to our websites in the next couple of months to make it easier for you to access everything too. I know it’s not the same but we’ll be able to do video lives more often too and would love to continue our convos there!
We may move into another physical space down the track, but for now, want to conserve our energy towards making this change.
We will always and forever keep putting people at the centre of everything we do and hope you’ll continue to support us to do this going forward too.
He aha te mea nui? He Tangata, he Tangata, he Tangata. - Phreaze
