Royal New Zealand Show host the Hawke's Bay A & P Society is battling on, determined to stage a show in Hastings this year, despite an early decision in Christchurch to cancel the South Island's biggest show.
The cancellation of the New Zealand Agricultural Show, otherwise known as the Canterbury Show, which was to have been held on November 11-13, was announced on Friday, with its A & P society saying it didn't want to risk going bankrupt.
But Hawke's Bay A & P general manager Sally Jackson says the Royal Show is still scheduled to go ahead at Showgrounds Hawke's Bay Tomoana on October 21-23, with a target of 30,000 people through the gates.
That is one of four options for the show which, like the Canterbury show, dates back almost 160 years.
The other options being formulated, depending on the alert levels of the Covid-19 crisis, are a smaller-scale "provincial" show, a show open only to competition classes and their exhibitors, and the least palatable, no show at all.