The Waitangi Treaty Grounds will not host Waitangi Day commemorations on February 6 next year, instead opting for virtual events.

"It was a hard decision and the first time we are not having Waitangi Day actually at Waitangi," Waitangi National Trust spokeswoman Nineke Metz told AAP.

"With the current situation, health and safety comes first. We're talking to Maori Television and will have a program of events."

The Treaty of Waitangi, New Zealand's founding document, was signed at the grounds in 1840.

Politicians traditionally travel to meet local Maori there in the leadup to the day.

Ms Ardern has spent several days at the Bay of Islands site each year of her prime ministership, undertaking formal meetings, observing a dawn service and staging a mass fry-up, where her MPs don aprons and cook bacon and eggs for thousands of visitors.

Like many events, it will not be happening this summer, as organisers grapple with New Zealand's new traffic-light styled COVID-19 regulations.

Under the system, which began last week, regions are placed at either a green, orange or red setting, with associated limits on gathering sizes and vaccine-pass use according to the impact of COVID-19 cases in the region.

Auckland, the centre of a Delta outbreak which has infected almost 10,000 New Zealanders, has moved out of its 107-day lockdown and into red restrictions, along with Northland and several other North Island regions with lower vaccine rates.

The rest of the country is at orange, with the government aiming to shift as many regions as possible to green over the summer.

But the regulations have forced a spate of event and festival closures, with many citing the new rules or the lack of certainty.

Lorde has pulled her nationwide tour, New Plymouth's Festival of Lights is off, the country's biggest music festivals - Bay Dreams, Rhythm and Vines, and Outerfields - have been cancelled or postponed, and new year's eve fireworks in Auckland and Christchurch will stay in their boxes.

One event, Wellington craft brew festival Beers in the Basin, took aim at the government as it rescheduled for April.

"You may have seen Minister Stuart Nash MP suggesting that we should cancel our event ... given the confidence he instilled, we have taken that on board," Beers in the Basin said.

One of the few festivals planning on running the gauntlet is Splore, a three-day music and arts extravaganza on a beautiful strip of beach at Tapapakanga Regional Park, overlooking the Coromandel.

On Wednesday, Splore announced Canberran hip-hop star Genesis Owusu as its headline act.

Director John Minty said the Ghana-born ARIA winner was willing to commit to a seven-day quarantine stint to perform, and New Zealand was happy to have him.

"With the travel bubble closing it's restricted who's been able to come in ... and he's blown up by winning four ARIA awards. Hopefully he becomes a big international star," Mr Minty told AAP.

Splore is scheduled for late February and will make a final call a fortnight out.

"We can only go ahead in the green and orange traffic light. Not red that we're currently under ... but we think we'll be in orange by January," Mr Minty said.

"We're feeling quite relaxed."

There is even a chance Ms Ardern might be at the festival, given her DJ fiance Clarke Gayford has joined the bill.

Despite the spate of cancellations, the prime minister denied New Zealanders were heading for a summer well short of her promised "classic" status.

"Well that depends on what your definition (of classic) is," Ms Ardern said.

"Mine is time with family and friends, the ability to travel and see one another, (and) spend a little time at a beach."

Last month, the government pledged to underwrite 90 per cent of "unrecoverable costs" from large festivals if COVID-19 forces them to cancel, but that promise has not prevented the pull-outs.

"Ultimately (organisers) are going to make their own calls ... we have wanted to give a bit more surety to things like festivals to go ahead and we've done our best to do that," the prime minister said.

Australian Associated Press