PERSONA – ROCKSHOP BANDQUEST 2026!

🎸 PERSONA – ROCKSHOP BANDQUEST 2026! 🎸

Tuesday night was honestly one of the coolest nights ever for Persona! 🤘

We got to perform at Rockshop BandQuest 2026 at the TSB Showplace. This was the first ever BandQuest held in Taranaki for Year 7 & 8 students, so we were pretty lucky to be part of it!

This was our first time performing in front of that many people and on a proper professional stage with all the lights, sound equipment and sound checks. It was pretty nerve-wracking but also SO COOL! 😎

We have been preparing for this for most of this year and some of us have been working towards it since last year. Our band is:

🎸 Callum Anderson – Rhythm Guitar
🥁 Leo Luke – Drums
🎸 Alexander Den-McKay – Bass
🎸 Skyla Rose Pratt – Lead Guitar
🎤 Joel Purdie – Vocals
🎹 Fletcher Bublitz – Keyboard/Synth

A massive thank you to Matua Phil and Jeff for helping us practise, improve and get ready for this event. We definitely couldn’t have done it without you!

Also, thank you to our past band member Zane Gallichan, who helped us get to where we are now. ❤️

Matua Phil entered us into BandQuest and on the day we left school at 1.30pm to head to the TSB Showplace for sound check. It was really cool meeting the judges and hanging out with the other bands.

There was some INSANE talent there and we were especially impressed by the Highlands bands! 🤘🔥

While we were waiting for the results, we got to watch Guer (pronounced Way) perform. They have won Rockquest before, so it was pretty awesome getting to watch them live. We even ended up making a mosh pit and dancing along with everyone! 😂

Then came the results…

We were standing on stage waiting and after 3rd place and 2nd place were announced, we honestly thought we’d missed out. We still had a tiny bit of hope, but we thought it probably wasn’t us.

Then they called PERSONA – 1ST PLACE! 🏆🥇

We were SHOCKED. Confused. Excited. Pretty much all of the emotions at once!

Then suddenly we had to do photos and interviews and stuff, so for a few minutes we felt like we were famous! 📸🎤😂

We are really proud of our band. We are a rock band made up of friends, and we all support each other. This whole experience has brought us even closer together and made us connect even more as a band.

A huge thank you to all our parents for supporting us, driving us around, listening to us practise and putting up with all the noise!

And a special shoutout to Kerie, Briar, Damion and Carlos M for being some of our biggest groupies on the night! 😂🤘

We can’t wait to see what the future brings for Persona. Hopefully you’ll see us performing at Sludgefest and SOMAD sometime soon!

📸 Check out our photos here: https://photos.app.goo.gl/YnuzLmCAQ9C8sSnm9

Thanks for supporting us!

By your #1 Puketapu band,
PERSONA 🎸🥁🎤🎹🤘