The Purple Lab - Phreaze Factory

🚨 We’re GTFOH… but not going anywhere! 🚨

After an incredible journey at Historic Village, it’s time for us to say goodbye to our physical store location and hello to a new chapter!

📦 As mentioned in our previous post, PFC Musicwear, Phreaze Factory, The Purple Lab, PF Custom Prints & Pasefika Haven are NOT closing down. We’re simply moving to an online-first and events-based model, so you’ll still be able to shop, create, connect and support us — just in a different way.

Before we make the move, we’re throwing one last blowout at our Historic Village space! 🎉

📅 Saturday 25 July | 10am–2pm
📍 Phreaze Factory, Historic Village

🔥 Major Price Drops
🎁 In-Store Giveaways
🎤 Live Performances
🎶 Open Mic & Karaoke
🛍️ Clearance Deals Across Multiple Brands

Come celebrate with us, grab some bargains, have a sing, jump on the mic, and help us send off this chapter in style. ❤️

Thank you to everyone who has supported us at the Village over the years. This isn’t goodbye—it’s simply the next evolution of what we do. You’ll still find us online, at markets, festivals, pop-ups, workshops and community events around Aotearoa.

See you on the 25th! 🙌

Heat pressing day for our Rangatahi at Welcome Bay Community Centre! Finally get to take their tees home :).

If you have been thinking of doing the Intro to T Shirt printing or other in-person workshop with us but never got around to it, next week will be your last chance ❤️

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

Mōrena e te whānau! There are a lot of new small home-based businesses popping up, creative and otherwise (I love this!).

Creatives often ask me in our professional development sessions - what they need to be aware of when starting a business as they want to do it right (tax-wise etc).

Often, one of the things they are not aware of, is that on top of business registration, IRD etc, you also have to pay what’s called an ACC LEVY. Everyone that works or is self employed must pay this. And it’s a decent chunk of money each year.

They can sting you for years of it if they find out later about your self employment down the track too so it’s really important to be aware of it.

Have a read of this: https://www.acc.co.nz/for-business/understanding-levies-if-you-work-or-own-a-business

Keen for more of a kōrero around starting a creative business? Check out our one-to-one professional development session details here: https://www.phreazefactory.com/purple/workshop/ -7

Understanding levies if you work or own a business Everyone who works or owns a business in New Zealand pays levies on their income.

Don’t use AI to write music then try to pretend it was all you. The technology is out there now and the truth will come out. If you use it, just say so, but better yet, write it yourself :)

I will be posting every time I get a submission that is AI and the person submitting did not add a disclaimer that the music is AI.

I'll be doing this as a service to other independent stations and artists that work really hard to perfect their art, so that maybe not all of us have to pay for a service.

These people send this stuff out with a huge sell line about stations worldwide spinning it etc. but, in my eyes stations worldwide are being duped into it by a smooth sales pitch from a person most certainly doing it intentionally.

I ran this track through my paid service of which you'll see the attached report and also through 2 free services that found the probability of AI 99% and 100% respectively.

The "artist' is Tyler Pinder and the track is called Burn.

Just stop being shady or slick. Give us the info so we can decide without being duped. If you wrote it and used AI to do the rest say that. If you just put prompts into a program, say that. Be forthright. Thanks.