NZSO's 56th Annual Conference lands at Tākina, 15-17 October, with an eight-strong international keynote line-up

The 56th Annual Conference of Te Pūao Mātai Pukupuku New Zealand Society for Oncology (NZSO) runs from Thursday 15 to Saturday 17 October 2026 at Tākina Wellington Convention and Exhibition Centre, 50 Cable Street, Te Aro. The society's conference pages confirm the venue and address, and note that the conference occupies level 2 of the building, where delegates collect name badges on arrival. The dates are fixed by the society's own social programme page, which schedules the early career networking function for Thursday 15 October, the welcome reception for Friday 16 October and the conference dinner for Saturday 17 October. The 2026 theme, stated on the organiser's sponsorship page, is "Advocacy in Action: Shaping Cancer Care Together".

Who runs it

NZSO describes itself on its about page as "the leading organisation supporting Cancer Care Professionals and Cancer Researchers across Aotearoa", and as a not-for-profit incorporated society that brings clinical oncologists and cancer researchers together to promote the exchange of new research and clinical developments. Its stated purpose is to improve the lives of people with cancer today and reduce the impact of cancer tomorrow through translational research, to convene cancer care professionals and researchers including through an annual conference, and to achieve equity and support advocacy and education across oncology. The society's own history material dates it from 1967, and the meeting is described on its site as an international meeting held annually, with programmes organised in turn by regional committees in each of the main centres — which is why the conference moves around the country and why Wellington's turn matters to the capital.

The current executive is led by president Dr Rachel Purcell, a senior research fellow in the University of Otago's Department of Surgery, with Dr Paula Barlow of Hawke's Bay Hospital as vice-president and Dr Laird Cameron of Auckland Hospital as immediate past president. Professional conference organising is handled by Conference Innovators, whose project coordinator and accommodation coordinator are both named as the contacts on the society's sponsorship and accommodation pages.

Who it's for

This is a cross-disciplinary clinical and scientific meeting rather than a single-specialty one. The society's registration page lists delegate categories covering senior medical officers, registrars, scientists, nurses, allied health professionals, students, patient advocates and industry — a spread that tells you a good deal about the room. There is also a special-interest-group day-only category, reflecting the SIG meetings that traditionally open the conference. Registration is open through the society's EventsAir portal, with early-bird registration closing 31 August 2026 and standard registration applying from 1 September.

The 2026 keynote programme published by the society is unusually international for a domestic New Zealand meeting. It includes Professor Tony Mok, chairman of clinical oncology at The Chinese University of Hong Kong and principal investigator on the IPASS lung cancer study; Dr Chris Booth, professor of oncology and public health sciences at Queen's University in Kingston, Canada and a founding leader of the Common Sense Oncology initiative; Professor Misty Jenkins of the Walter and Eliza Hall Institute in Melbourne, who leads WEHI's immunotherapy programme; and Jo Bird of Sheffield Teaching Hospitals NHS Trust, president-elect of the UK Oncology Nursing Society. Domestic speakers listed include Professor Robert Weinkove of the Malaghan Institute of Medical Research as the 2026 Bruce Cain Memorial Lecturer, Māori health researchers Cheryl Davies and Jeannine Stairmand of the University of Otago Wellington, and clinical research nurse Nikki Ross. The society's award programme — including the PHARMAC Emerging Researcher Award, the NZSO Bridget Robinson Award, the Roche Translational Cancer Research Fellowship and the Cancer Research Trust NZ Nurses and Allied Health Award — is presented across the conference, with winners celebrated at the Saturday dinner.

The venue

Tākina is the newest of Wellington's major event assets. The society's venue page describes it as an award-winning building and "the Capital's largest built infrastructure investment since the Wellington Regional Stadium two decades ago", providing event facilities across three floors and 18,000 square metres since opening in June 2023. It sits in the CBD's cultural precinct opposite Te Papa, and the organiser notes it is within easy walking distance of key transport links, entertainment and recreation options, with many accommodation options nearby.

The delegate-movement picture is unusually tight. The society's accommodation page lists three contracted hotels with walking distances measured from the venue: Museum Apartment Hotel on Wakefield Street at 170 metres, TRYP by Wyndham on Tory Street at 280 metres, and Oaks Hotel Wellington on Courtenay Place at 400 metres. All three sit inside Te Aro, meaning the entire conference footprint — sessions, poster hall, welcome reception and the Saturday dinner, all of which are held at Tākina — is walkable end to end. That compactness removes the need for delegate shuttling almost entirely, which is a meaningful planning variable for a three-day meeting with evening functions on all three nights. Wellington Airport lies a short drive south-east of the CBD and the city's rail and bus interchange is at the northern end of the same walkable core.

Why it matters

A 56th edition makes this one of the longest continuously running scientific meetings in the New Zealand health calendar, and its rotating-city model means Wellington will not host it again for several years. For the capital's business-events sector, an October three-day medical-scientific conference with an international faculty, an industry exhibition, three ticketed evening functions and a contracted hotel block is close to the archetypal association-conference win: mid-week-to-weekend, shoulder-season, and almost entirely CBD-contained. It also lands squarely in Tākina's core target market — the mid-sized association and medical-scientific meetings the centre was built to capture.