It may not exactly be dining with Degas or lunching with Lautrec, but it could be the next best thing.

The Tauranga Art Gallery is offering their premises as a Christmas venue for cocktail evenings, seated dinners – and the more light-footed music and dancing.

Diners will share the atrium with Gregor Kregar's piece ‘Foucault's Pendulum'.

Although the gallery has been used for events in the past, it has been decided to promote the space as a Christmas venue.

Tauranga Art Gallery director Penelope Jackson says the idea to introduce Christmas events came from holding previous successful tabled dinners, and dine and dance functions.

'We have to make 20 per cent of our income and part of that comes from venue hire; and the spin-off from holding social functions is that we introduce a whole new audience to the gallery,” says Penelope.

Functions are held in the Atrium area of the gallery, 'although we have strict rules around functions and we always provide adequate staff it ensure security,” says Penelope.

The Art Gallery has also hosted a wedding as well as being used by photographers as a wet weather venue for wedding photographs.

'The beautiful big staircase just lends itself to wedding photography.”

Those who hold a Christmas function at the gallery may be forgiven for leaving a little starry-eyed, as they will share the atrium with the new work of Gregor Kregar named ‘Foucault's Pendulum'.

The suspended installation, made from aluminium combined with recycled neon lights, is named after French physicist Leon Foucault, who, in 1851, designed an experimental device to demonstrate the rotation of Earth.