Weather dampens Fieldays numbers

A drop in visitor numbers at the latest agricultural Fieldays has disappointed organisers but they say it is no disaster.

This year's event at Mystery Creek, near Hamilton, attracted 116,437 people from Wednesday to Saturday.

That was down nearly 5800 - almost 4.75 per cent - on last year and the second-lowest attendance this decade. But it was still 2000 better than 2004.

The lower result was attributed to a combination of people being put off by poor weather forecasts and actual cold, rainy weather on Saturday.

Fieldays chairman Lloyd Downing was disappointed, saying organisers had picked a good Business of Breeding theme which generated strong publicity - including international attention for live bull semen collections.

"We did our marketing right. I think the thing that was wrong was the weather."

Last year, sales and orders at the actual event totalled $156.9 million, up 30 per cent on 2004.

Some exhibitors reported "great" sales results this year as well and Downing did not believe overall sales would be down significantly, despite the attendance dip. However, final figures won't be available for several months.

Regardless of actual sales, it was important for firms to be at Fieldays for visibility, Downing said. "It's probably four days of bloody hard advertising."

However, the falling attendance did hurt Fieldays' ticket sales revenue, which meant less money available for site development to help ensure future attendance stayed up, Downing said.

"We've got a lot of competition ... from other events around the country."

But he did not expect development plans to be "visibly" affected.