Weekend for petrol-heads and artists

HOT WHEELS: Bay Rodders Tauranga members Leanne Milne with her orange 56 Chevy 383 sb and Keith Sawyer with his black 37 Pontiac 307 small block Chev. Photo / George Novak

Tauranga Arts Festival, the speedway, crossfit champs and the Hot Rod Nationals are just four of the activities that will keep holidaymakers entertained this Labour weekend in the Bay.

With accommodation nearly booked out across the city, thousands more people are expected in the area to enjoy the events.

This weekend will be the first time the Street Rod Nationals have been held in the city while Tauranga Arts Festival is under way.

Kristin Dunne, of Tourism Bay of Plenty, said there were a variety of events for people to attend. "From petrol-head stuff and crossfit, to art with the arts festival, it's a huge variety of options among all of our usual things you can get out and do, like the beach, the walks and natural environment.

"It's the first long weekend in a while, so our expectation is it is a busy one. We will have a number of visitors in town."

Bay Rodders president Dean Andersen said the 2015 Street Rod Nationals would be held across the weekend, with Sunday's event Show and Shine at Classic Flyers, and would feature 240 of New Zealand's best hot rods.

"Tauranga has never seen them but we have two nitro cars doing displays - Karl Boniface's Nitro Flashback and Dave Gould from Te Puke will feature his car Nightmare, nitro-mear," he said.

Mr Andersen said more than 2000 people could turn up to such an event.

"You don't get the chance to see these kind of hot rods in one place very often. They are not just Tauranga cars, they are from Christchurch, Nelson, Auckland, Wellington, everywhere, and they are the best cars from around the country too.

"If people haven't heard or seen a nitro car before, they will be blown away."

Sandra Simpson, of the Tauranga Arts Festival, said there was an abundance of shows scheduled to take place over the weekend as well as the ANZ Community Day, which would close traffic off at The Strand from 11am to 3pm.

Ms Simpson said to celebrate the 150 years of Alice in Wonderland a procession of the creations from Wonderland would meet at Red Square at 1.30pm to parade the streets.

A Mad Hatter's tea party would also feature at Dry Dock Cafe throughout the day.

With the weather reports indicating rain for parts of the weekend, some of the festival's events could be moved from Saturday to Monday.

Motel Association committee member Kris Stamatakos said accommodation in the Mount Maunganui and Tauranga areas was almost full, with only a few units left across the whole city.

Metservice forecast rain developing around midday tomorrow with northerly winds while on Sunday rain was easing to showers and winds were turning southerly.

On Monday there will be a few fine spells and a few showers. Winds turning westerly.