There is a lovely buzz about Hawke's Bay these days and it suddenly seems as if our social calendar has become nice and full.
The stream of cruise ships docking in Napier means the CBD is constantly flowing with people. While the rain did put a bit of a dampener on Tremains Art Deco at the weekend, there were still plenty of people out and about enjoying themselves.
And now we are experiencing an influx of people coming into town for Te Matatini 2017, which has seen 47 kapa haka groups, comprising more than 1800 performers, come from far and wide to compete until Sunday.
Although the powhiri was held at McLean Park yesterday, the actual festival will be held at the Hawke's Bay Regional Sports Park, which has been renamed Kahungunu Park for the occasion. The festival gets underway in earnest today and features up to 16 performances a day for three days, followed by the finals on Sunday.
It is a fantastic event for us to be hosting and congratulations to Ngati Kahungunu and the organisers for getting everything sorted. If today's powhiri was anything to go by, we are in for a good few days.
