Wairoa Show will go ahead for 125th anniversary in 2026

Wairoa A&P Society president Michael Thomas amid the lush grass and clover at the showgrounds, where the annual show will be held on January 16-17, possibly for the last time. Photo / Doug Laing

The Wairoa A&P Show will be held at the town’s showgrounds in January, and in 2027 at possibly a new venue.

That’s the promise of A&P society president Michael Thomas, who has been in the chair for two years but, because of Cyclone Gabrielle and other weather events, is yet to stage a show under his watch.

Three of the last five shows have been cancelled, with the event scheduled for January 16-17 next year serving to mark the 125th anniversary of a show that dates back to 1899.

“I’m not going to resign until we’ve had a show,” he said, standing amid the lush, green grass and clover now priming the grounds for the return of Wairoa District’s biggest annual event in the first few weeks of 2026.

The scourge of bad weather has hit the show and the grounds hard in the last two decades.

In 2010 and 2020 the shows went ahead despite heavy rain, but popular attraction the shearing had to be held elsewhere because trucks were at risk of bogging down trying to get the sheep in and out of the grounds.

Horse trucks, caravans and floats were stranded in the quagmire, and the society was left with huge costs to restore the grounds, despite massive volunteer input.

In 2021 the show was cancelled because of crowd-gathering restrictions amid the Covid crisis, but the shearing was again held elsewhere.

Most devastatingly, Cyclone Gabrielle in February 2023 gutted the equestrian pavilion, destroyed a shed that was next to the shearing pavilion and hasn’t been seen since, and left the grounds layered with silt, leading to the cancellation of the 2024 show.

With hundreds of hours of work carried out by volunteers, the showgrounds had by January this year recovered enough to be in what Thomas says was “perfect condition”.

“It looked incredible,” he said, but again rain intervened, leading to another cancellation to prevent a repeat of earlier calamities.

Thomas is now confident, saying the show will go ahead on Friday and Saturday, January 16-17, marking the 125th anniversary, with the equestrian sports, shearing and rodeo expected to attract hundreds of competitors.

Beyond that, the future is not certain, but it is proposed that the grounds be taken by sale agreement under the Public Works Act for inclusion in the flood protection scheme, in which much of the grounds would become a spillway.

The A&P Society is in discussions with Wairoa Racing Club with a view to the show being held at Te Kupenga Racecourse in the future.

The races, dating back to 1879, have not been held in Wairoa since 2020.

Thomas hopes there will be some decisions by the new year, with legal scrutiny of respective constitutions, assets and the other issues needing to be sorted before a buyout can occur.

The most popular proposal for a future location is co-location at the racecourse and development of an events centre for the town, but Thomas said “some alternatives have been suggested”.

“We haven’t found a better one,” he said.

Hawke’s Bay Regional Council, with a $70 million fund for the flood protection scheme, will “help us relocate”, he said.

“It is where the river wants to go,” he said, pointing to where the “rapids” of the river in flood bounced on to and across the grounds from the north in 2023.

Doug Laing is a senior reporter based in Napier with Hawke’s Bay Today, and has 52 years of journalism experience, 42 of them in Hawke’s Bay, in news gathering, including breaking news, sports, local events, issues, and personalities.