‘Brand new' event coming next year

Otago Daily Times

06-06-2025

Despite having to justify the Easter influx of 65,000 visitors, Wheels at Wānaka general manager Allan Dippie intends to bring to town another event in 2026.
In April, Wheels at Wānaka brought in its biggest crowd and Wānaka's biggest crowd in one day to an event, with 50,000 visitors on the Saturday of the long weekend.
The flood of people to town meant roads were blocked and some inconvenienced locals took to Facebook pages airing their concerns about traffic lines.
While some locals complained about being held up, the event brought in millions to the local economy and businesses
across town reeled in record sales.
Still, post-event, the Queenstown Lakes District Council approached Mr Dippie to explain why the event exceeded the predicted numbers and why nothing was done about limiting those coming to the event.
The event caused extreme traffic congestion on Wānaka roads during the long weekend, which upset some locals, despite the event being announced two years in advance.
Mr Dippie and his events team had predicted about 45,000, going by previous years.
"There has been a bit of a discussion about Wheels at Wānaka from the council.
"Since the event, council sent us a 'please explain' email and started getting a bit toey about things and threatening possible enforcement action. I think one of the local councillors might have been the driving force behind the email."
This is in reference to Wānaka councillor and deputy mayor Quentin Smith, who has been vocal about traffic congestion around the show.
Mr Dippie wrote back to the council, explaining that the wet weather forecast over Easter had meant much of the crowd showed up to the Saturday event, and so crowds were not evenly spread. The event did not account for the huge number of children with their parents, he said.
"They wanted to know how we were planning on stopping so many coming, which is kind of not possible with a family event of this nature.
"We had over 50,000 people in one day, which has never been seen in Wānaka before and probably not likely to be seen again for a long time.
"People were being rarked up on Facebook by one of the local councillors," he said.
While Mr Dippie has taken an apologetic approach to the traffic issues, he is also very pleased with how the event turned out and has labelled it a huge success.
"I think council might be out of step with people at times but in general events are great things and the community welcomes them."
He said most of the businesses he spoke to in town had broken record sales over the Easter weekend.
The council accepted Mr Dippie's explanation and will not be taking matters any further with any sort of prosecution or investigation.
A spokesperson said the event was a welcome boost to local hospitality and retail businesses.
"Wheels at Wānaka in particular attracted many people to town. We're certainly aware of the heavy traffic which caused disruption in the township and roads leading into it at peak times. Wheels at Wānaka's organisers confirmed beforehand that this would be their last event.
"In general, council considers the requirements of all events regarding their demand for services and potential impact on local infrastructure such as roading as part of each resource consent application."
The council added that Warbirds Over Wānaka, which is held every second Easter, was likely to attract the same number of people next year, but its location at the Wānaka airport would mean less inconvenience in town.
"Events of all sizes continue to be important economic drivers for the Upper Clutha and our district as a whole."
The Wheels at Wānaka event is run by the Wheels at Wānaka Charitable Trust and donates its surplus back into the community each year, across several community focused groups.
The trust would be announcing the recipients later this month and at this stage things were looking very positive for record community donations, Mr Dippie said.
"You can imagine the trust getting fined by the QLDC and incurring legal costs would have would not have gone down so well, so I'm glad common sense has prevailed."
Mr Dippie confirmed he was in the early planning stages of a 2026 event for the town but was tight-lipped about what that would be.
"We are not easily put off and I do encourage council to not put others off and actually encourage events. You don't want to be the council that makes it hard for events.
"We will be announcing a future event but a different type of event. The community should be standing by for something brand new, next year, another event, 2026.
"We always said we would try to do new and different things."