What a week

OPINION: The weather for Cup and Show Week this year was not the traditional hot and howling nor'wester, but the annual racing and agricultural highlights of the year were, by all accounts, as much the central events of Canterbury's social calendar as they have ever been.

The cooler weather for Cup Day at Addington might, in fact, have benefited the event by lowering the incidence of public drunkenness and larrikinism that has marred it in recent years.  

And, while attendance at the Royal New Zealand Show on Friday was lower than the organisers had expected, those show-goers who did attend got as good a reminder as it is possible to get of the true agricultural and pastoral foundation of Christchurch's economy. 

In the past decade or two,  horse racing has undoubtedly  flagged as the quintessentially New Zealand pastime. 

A little paradoxically, interest in Cup Day at Addington has, if anything, grown.  Many people,  particularly younger ones, who would not be seen near a racecourse at any other time of the year are happy to mill about the raceway in what might be seen as a warm-up to pre-Christmas partying. 

Regrettably, for a few, having a good time means getting legless on alcohol. 

Stories of patrons becoming grossly intoxicated and making themselves obnoxious were in danger of overshadowing what for most people isa chance to dress up and have a pleasantly good time.

This year, such behaviour was less apparent.

While the cooler weather was almost certainly a factor in that, the organisers' increased vigilance about drunken behaviour that could impact on others must  also have played a part. 

That is to be welcomed. It must be hoped the vigilance will continue if the event is to continue to be an ornament on the calendar, rather than a blot on it.

The Royal New Zealand Show, which in one form or another has been a fixture since 1862, is an event of an altogether different kind.  While for Christchurch city-dwellers it makes a long weekend and may be a chance to relax with the children, it has an underlying seriousness of purpose as the main annual exhibition put on by what is still  Canterbury's main industry. 

The displays of livestock, products and machinery demonstrate as well as anything can the source of much of the wealth and wellbeing we have. They also show what those somewhat remote and abstract arguments about land and water use, for instance, are all about.    

While Cup and Show Week is  the most significant event week of the year in Christchurch, other events, mostly supported by the city council, are also giving a desirable boost to the city, making it a desirable place to live and a destination at various times for outsiders to visit. 

The Buskers Festival in January and the Ellerslie Flower Show later in the year, for all the controversy over their financing, attract significant attention. 

The notable gap is the lack of a major event over the bleak months of winter. Some attempt has been made by snow-sport promoters with a winter carnival but its success has been limited.  Whether the gap needs to be filled is an open question. 

It might be that trying to lure people out during the coldest months is not worth the money and effort.

- © Fairfax NZ News