WoodWorks 2026 is Innovatek's annual engineered-timber conference on using wood in commercial and multi-residential buildings, running 28–29 October 2026 at Toitoi – Functions on Hastings in Hawke's Bay (the 2026 edition is in Hastings, not Rotorua as some listings show).
WoodWorks 2026 is New Zealand's annual conference on growing the capability and use of wood in commercial and multi-residential buildings, running 28–29 October 2026. Its confirmed 2026 home is Toitoi – Functions on Hastings, in central Hastings, Hawke's Bay — not Rotorua, which hosted the 2025 edition. Over two days it delivers four sessions on mass timber construction, prefabrication, fire engineering and completed-project case studies, capped by afternoon site visits on 29 October to the four-storey mass-timber Heretaunga House and to Te Aka, the Napier Library and civic precinct.
WoodWorks is produced by Innovatek Ltd, a Rotorua-based events and industry-media company that runs a long-standing portfolio of forest and wood conferences (including WoodTECH). WoodWorks itself is the design-and-construction-facing event in that stable, held annually and drawing architects, engineers and builders alongside the wood-processing sector.
The programme is aimed at engineered timber manufacturers, architects, developers, quantity surveyors, planners, researchers and construction trades — the professionals specifying and building with mass timber and engineered wood.
Toitoi – Hawke's Bay Arts & Events Centre is Hastings District Council's restored civic arts and events complex in central Hastings, and its Functions on Hastings space is the flexible conference-and-dining venue used for the 2026 edition. It sits in the Hastings CBD, roughly 20 minutes' drive from Hawke's Bay (Napier) Airport, with the wider Napier–Hastings hotel and motel stock available across the two centres.
WoodWorks is a genuine national industry conference with a live registration site, a detailed technical programme and built-project site tours — the kind of specialist, sector-anchored event that fills mid-week shoulder-season room nights in a regional centre. Its rotation between regions (Rotorua in 2025, Hawke's Bay in 2026) shows how a well-run trade conference can be moved to spread business-events value across New Zealand's provincial venues.
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