Fieldays celebrates 55th anniversary
Still bringing in huge crowds, Fieldays is “fulfilling its purpose”.
New Zealand farmers might struggle to think back to what their industry was like 55 years ago but many will have memories of Fieldays, which this year is celebrating its emerald anniversary.
It was a small start at the Te Rapa Racecourse back in 1969 with a budget of just $10,500 – but even then, 9000 visitors attended, at a charge of 50 cents per adult, 20 cents per child and 20 cents for car parking. The turn-out took organisers by surprise including Tirau farmer and later Federated Farmers’ president, John Kneebone. He’d set the ball rolling when he wrote a letter to the Waikato Times suggesting New Zealand farmers could have an annual outing in Hamilton just as they did in London with the Smithfield Show.
Alan Sharp, 77, was a Young Farmers’ Club (YFC) member drafted in for that very first event and hasn’t missed a Fieldays since, apart from last year when Covid saw him needing to carry out a lot of organisation to make sure things ran smoothly from his home.
In 1970, Fieldays was held in March so it could host the Queen and Royal Family and Alan was put on points duty on busy Te Rapa straight. It moved to Mystery Creek in 1971, almost 65 hectares of free-draining sandy soil with a natural amphitheatre which was relatively close to Hamilton. A new headquarters was built later that decade and the Tractor Pull Competition introduced.
Alan quickly found himself in charge of the water and toilets team, later ably backed up by Neil Quinlan, who joined the band of Fieldays volunteers in 1986. He’s been Alan’s “right-hand man” for the last 35 years, now installing two kilometres of temporary piping to hook up exhibitors directly to the water supply.
In 1990, Fieldays hosted the World Agricultural Expo where a crowd of over 100,000 visitors attended over four days.
Alan Sharp still marvels at the fact that a record 44,000 people attended on the Friday of the 2021 event: “That’s a colossal crowd of people.”
In 1994, the Ag Art Wear competition was launched, a year later the Pavilion opened and two years after that the No 8 Wire National Art Awards began. In 2003, the Rural Bachelor of the Year had its debut event and four years later research showed Fieldays contributed more than $600 million to the New Zealand economy each year.
“It’s fulfilling its purpose,” Sharp says. “If it wasn’t doing that, exhibitors and visitors wouldn’t keep coming back. It’s evolved because it’s had to in order to survive.”
He makes the point Fieldays couldn’t run if paid professionals were required for all the tasks the 200-strong band of volunteers undertake. In 2021, that was tested when – due to a shortage of manpower – a number of volunteers willingly came out of retirement to help out once again. Not only do they have great camaraderie, he says, they keep bringing back their considerable intellectual property to the event every year.
“We make it all as seamless as possible but behind the scenes it’s not at all.”