Valentina Bellomo/Stuff
The Extravaganza Fair, pictured here in Timaru in 2021, tours New Zealand and visits Blenheim once a year.
Blenheim’s A&P Park will continue to hold events such as the A&P Show and the weekly Farmers’ Market, but a fair held there recently won’t be returning.
The park hosted The Extravaganza Fair on September 23 and 24. The fair then posted on their Facebook page on Wednesday, saying they were looking for a new venue, as A&P Park was “moving towards only sports events, and local council unfortunately doesn’t have a dedicated ‘event space’.”
The post said that after four years of visiting Blenheim, “We don’t want you to miss out on the fun weekend we provide”.
Mels Berg, The Extravaganza Fair event co-ordinator, told Stuff that when she tried to rebook A&P Park for their 2024 event on Monday last week, she was told by the Marlborough District Council that the park was “in the process of re-evaluating what they want to use the grounds for”.
“And they won’t be able to give me an answer for at least two months, but it’s swaying towards sports events only,” Berg said.
Brya Ingram/Stuff
Blenheim’s A&P Park, in Redwoodtown, hosts events such as the annual Marlborough A&P Show and the weekly Marlborough Farmers’ Market.
She said an alternative venue wasn’t offered by the council, and said she emailed them on Monday asking if Pollard Park could be a potential future venue for the fair. But Pollard Park wasn’t confirmed, and the fair was open to offers.
“If somebody wants to host us, we would love to come back, we really, really want to, and I think that there’s lots and lots of families that would miss out on a whole lot of fun if we didn’t come back,” Berg said.
“(Blenheim) is actually the first event of our season … we feel like it’s a real centre point of New Zealand to start our tour as well.”
A council spokesperson said A&P Park could be used for non-sporting activities, and that the annual A&P Show – about to celebrate 150 years – would be able to use the venue for the foreseeable future.
“But the Extravaganza Fair has grown too large for that site,” the spokesperson said.
Ricky Wilson/Stuff
A Marlborough District Council spokesperson says Pollard Park has been offered to The Extravaganza Fair as a future venue.
Council staff spoke to the fair organisers on September 22 and invited them to consider Churchill Glade at Pollard Park for their 2024 event, they said.
Marlborough councillor Matt Flight said he had spoken to another council staff member about the situation. He said he was told that this year’s fair took up much more space than what the organisers had proposed.
“They were considerably bigger than what they actually said they were going to be, and they have been offered Pollard Park as an alternative location for future,” Flight said.
“If they’re going to run shows as big as that again, there are other areas that they can use, and Pollard Park is one of those areas that they’ve been offered.”
A&P Park would continue being available to host “not just sporting” events, he said.
BRYA INGRAM/STUFF
The Marlborough A&P Show will be returning to A&P Park this year on November 4 and 5.
“[A&P Park] is open to other items as well, like the Farmers’ Market is going to stay, there’s the A&P shows, which are also non-sport related that will be there.”
Berg said the size of the fair had not changed in the past three years.
“We actually cap how many stallholders we have for this exact reason. For us, big is not better. We’d rather be a quality amount, we don’t go over 30 stalls,” she said.
But the fence that had been set up at the park for their 2023 Blenheim fair had to be adjusted when they arrived, she said.
“The way it was fenced off, it was just a mistake… we wouldn’t have fit. The council came down … the fence got moved to where it should have been, and we fit fine.”
The Marlborough A&P Show will be celebrating its 150th event when it comes back to A&P Park on November 4 and 5, and the park’s sheep and poultry pavilion turned 100 years old in 2023.
