Hive of activity for field days
As trucks roll into the Southern Field Days site at Waimumu to start setting up the South Island’s largest agricultural trade fair, event secretary Sharon Paterson has a lot on her plate.
There are phone calls from exhibitors, a third reprint of 4000 day passes to organise, and a gale warning from the MetService which may have slowed down progress on putting marquees up.
It is still two weeks until the crowds begin to flock to the Southern Field Days but the site is a hive of activity already.
Paterson said: ‘‘It has been busy for a while but we marked out the site on the 21st and we are getting faster every year at doing that. The first trucks started turing up on Sunday and Monday, and now there is a pretty steady stream of people on site.’’
Exhibitors are responsible for organising their own spaces but that does not stop the flood of questions.
This year a new app may lighten the number of questions at the office.
‘‘It has got a site map on it so people can find where their site is. At the moment the exhibitors are uploading their own information into it so it is running a bit slowly but we will stop that next week and it should be a lot quicker.’’
The app will allow visitors to find exhibitors and show them how to reach those sites.
As a result, the committee had to make sure there was enough cellphone coverage at the site for people to be able to use the app.
It is just one of the changes at the Southern Field Days site this year. ‘‘We have got an extra
2500 square metres, so the sites are bigger this year, and there are another 42 sites in,’’ Paterson said.
‘‘There will be around about
750 sites I think, about the same as last time.’’
There was a waiting list of 40 exhibitors wanting a site, so there was the potential for the event to grow. Committee chairman Warren Ross said he would not rule out the event getting bigger.
‘‘The problem is that if we get bigger there will be an impact on parking space.
‘‘We have got Fred Booth Park across the road that we can use for parking on Thursday and Friday but not on a Wednesday because the rugby is there on the Wednesday night.’’
So far, everything was running like clockwork in preparation for the gates opening on February 12, Paterson said.
‘‘There are a couple of whisky companies coming and I think I will be visiting their sites.
‘‘I might need it by then,’’ Paterson said.