There will be no gate charges and a fairground Superpass will be available for each of the night shows, with unlimited rides apart from the Turboboost, which has a maximum of eight riders at a time.
It's one of the bigger weeks of the year for the Ngaruawahia-based amusements operator, which has faced numerous cancellations of events since Covid-19 restrictions first hit in March, just before the Royal Easter Show in Auckland.
A Mahons fleet of 25 trucks arrived on Sunday from the Poverty Bay A and P Show in Gisborne, and the amusements company will have about 25 of its own staff, along with up to 40 casuals from Hawke's Bay, said John Mahon, whose father started the company with the Wall of Death devil rides at the Gisborne and Hastings shows in 1946.
"I started coming along as a teenager and I haven't missed a year since," said Mahon, who now also has the next generation of the family involved.
Apart from the night shows and the expansion into the holiday weekend, the major difference for the amusements operator is that it is using generators for power supply. The company needed all three days beforehand to get things operating.
With the busy week of the separate Hawke's Bay Wine Awards and Primary Sector Awards out of the way last week, Hawke's Bay Tomoana and Hawke's Bay A and P Society general manager Sally Jackson was today still looking forward to the big show week, which because of the uncertainty of the Covid-19 crisis had to be downsized from the Royal Show status it has had since 2015, attracting three-day crowds of well over 20,000.
The trade exhibits, usually budgeted to make up about a third of revenue for a show which costs more than $400,000 to run, were cancelled.
This took in the interests of both the society and the exhibitors, many of whom would have otherwise been investing considerably more, with a risk of late-cancellation with considerable losses if Covid alert levels were increased.
"The show celebrated its 150th anniversary in 2013,so there is a lot of history at stake and we wouldn't want to be putting the society at risk," Jackson said.
Some other showing classes had also been cut, but Jackson said the society was particularly committed to competitors, especially where Hawke's Bay show events were parts of other athlete goals and aspirations, including Olympic Games selection.
Show hunting classes in the equestrian sports had increased sharply – "about 300 up on last year," she said – and sheep dog trial entries had passed 190, reflecting the thirst for competition after the cancellation of late 2020 season trials and island national championships in March-June.
Stock classes are also curtailed, although the Best in the Bay export lamb and commercial heifer competitions will still be decided. The Great Raihania Shears will go ahead in the shearing pavilion, with a secondary schools novice competition on Thursday, and its annual shearing and woolhandling championships on Friday.
Farm-fencing competitions will also be held, expected to include top Hawke's Bay competitor Tony Bouskill, who won at the Poverty Bay show on Saturday.
Other Hawke's Bay winners at the Poverty Bay show included Napier-based Jasmine Tipoki, claiming the senior woolhandling title in the shearing pavilion, while the fleece competition's supreme award went to Central Hawke's Bay farmer David Daulton, of Omapere, matched by his daughter, black and coloured fleece section winner Susan Grayson.
Despite the downsizing and the passing of the general election there will still be a political hue, with former short-term Prime Minister and longtime but now retired southern MP Bill English attending a show function on Friday.
While some light rain is forecast for Hastings tomorrow (Tuesday), fine weather is predicted for the rest of the week, including temperatures up to 24C during the four-day anniversary and Labour Day holiday weekend.
