Organisers of next year's world rowing championships hope the shores of Lake Karapiro will lined with up to 20,000 spectators each day. Photo / Getty Images

Organisers of next year's world rowing championships hope the shores of Lake Karapiro will lined with up to 20,000 spectators each day. Photo / Getty Images

The Rugby World Cup is already taking centre stage but, a year before that, New Zealand will host a huge world rowing championships on Lake Karapiro.

If the 1978 archive footage is anything to go by, when New Zealand last hosted a rowing world championships, the country's in for a grand time when next year's edition starts on October 31.

The pictures may be grainy, but you can't disguise a Lake Karapiro embankment crammed with a stubbie-clad, flannel-hatted throng going bananas.

There's even a fuzzy-brown kiwi mascot in a black singlet getting passed around like an early ancestor to Mr Blobby.

The key man charged with delivering a similar spectacle is the 32 year-old chief executive of Karapiro 2010, Tom Mayo.

He is on the final stop of the "rowbox" marketing campaign in Boston this weekend at the Head of the Charles regatta, featuring the likes of Mahe Drysdale, Nathan Cohen and Emma Twigg.

The rowbox is an interactive shipping container which has promoted the championships at the venues of Munich, Lucerne, Poznan, Racice and Henley where the sport has featured this year.

Mayo's recipe for knowing what works at major international sporting events is simple.

He was an English 1500m runner at the 2002 Commonwealth Games. Mix that with a three-year term as chief operations officer for Triathlon New Zealand and throw in a sports management degree from Britain's Loughborough University.

He says the marketing plan to showcase the event and lure fans has resulted in 5000 database-etched names.

"I don't think we can convert, for example, a Formula One fan to rowing. We need people with discretionary income who already go to big regattas," says Mayo.

"It's been the visual impact of Mums and Dads thinking New Zealand's actually coming to them, doing something a bit wacky.

"I've come to realise rowing's not the sort of sport a family goes into lightly, because it's expensive and takes up a lot of time. It's not like going down the road to kick a ball around."

The organising committee is planning on 80,000 people attending over the eight days, with a 20,000 maximum per day. Up to 10,000 are expected to be overseas visitors.

Another key stakeholder is Waipa District mayor Alan Livingston. The 57-year-old is eight years into a job where he wants to give further credence to the district's "Home of Champions"mantra.