TOP STORY: Big crowds toast fine weekend

Sunny weather provided a boost for Harvest Hawke's Bay at the weekend, with bumper crowds taking part in the wine weekend.
The annual food and wine festival drew large numbers of outside visitors, although Waitangi Day falling on a Sunday did not provide the optimum three-day holiday weekend.
Locals also turned out in droves, resulting in many events selling out, including the Church Road jazz concert, Trinity Hill's That 80's Show, Matariki Wines' vertical tasting workshop and the Great Winemakers' Balloon Debate, which launched the festival on Friday night.
Attracted perhaps by the cooling sea breezes, many punters also headed out to coastal wineries. Clearview Estate winemaker Tim Turvey said the numbers were unprecedented at his Te Awanga winery and at Kim Crawford Wines next door.
Judging the weekend to be "jolly good", event manager Carol-Ann Stubbs said her "unrain" dance, a cultural import from her native South Africa, had obviously worked.
While the official count has still to be finalised, organisers distributed more than 5000 glasses as entry tickets to the 26 wineries taking part.
And it was the wineries that put in the most effort that appeared to reap the most benefit.
Three that chose not to be included in Saturday's EIT shuttle bus routes, for example, did not pull so many punters. Those that offered entertainment, however, did particularly well.
Hawke's Bay Winemakers chairman John Loughlin said he was too busy coping with visitors at Askerne Vineyard to check on how others were doing.
Wineries contacted by Hawke's Bay Today were all enthusiastic about the festive mood. People had behaved well, they said, and wine sales had gone well.
The festival's success now begs the question of whether Harvest Hawke's Bay should revert back to its original centralised format on its opening day.
Mr Loughlin said he was among those in favour of that happening for a three-day weekend.
That would give festival-goers the chance to see the region's wide variety of wineries at one location and to travel out to those they most favoured on the following days.
Barrie Browne, Allied Domecq's Hawke's Bay's manager said that would be a return to the original format, when early wine festivals were held at Waikoko Gardens in the A & P Showgrounds in Hastings.
"To make it a success I believe the intention is to bring together food, arts and crafts and the wineries together to promote Hawke's Bay in a single festival."
Tending to favour such an approach, he said that would show the province off "as a whole basket of goods."
Mr Browne said he was happy with feedback on the Church Road concert featuring Poncho Sanchez and his Latino Afro-Cuban jazz band.
It was the Taradale winery's biggest ever, the event selling out by Friday night.
The 8100 people who turned out to enjoy the jazz included staff and complimentary ticket-holders.
Concert-goers and entertainers alike took two power cuts in their stride. The cause appeared to be a power surge off-site and it was fortunate, Mr Browne said, that it occurred in the first half, before the headline act.
Judged by the public for the first time, the festival's barrel art competition attracted more than 1000 votes. Winners were Mission Estate, with a mosaic of Cape Kidnappers.
The winery was very clever, Mrs Stubbs observed, putting a phone alongside the artwork so visitors could call the toll-free voting number.
Bottle art was displayed at Vidal Estate, and organisers said the total of 24 entries was a good effort by the public for the new event.