Performers (from left) Georgie Goater, Seonaid Lyons, Katelyn MacKellen and Phillip Anderson. Photo / Martin Sykes
Street performers, buskers and a big fireworks display have been illuminating the Viaduct at the Auckland Anniversary Weekend Aquatica festival.
The organisers of the event, previously known as the Auckland Boating Festival, expect that when it ends this afternoon, more than 220,000 people will have visited over the
three days of the holiday break.
Aquatica communications spokeswoman Christy Penmander says the perfect weather has contributed to the number of visitors.
"We have not collated the numbers yet, but expect there to be at least as many as the last festival in 2006. The intention was to create a festival for Aucklanders, and Aucklanders have certainly responded."
Yesterday the Viaduct was crowded with street performers as part of the International Buskers Festival.
Maritime-themed street performers, including dancers dressed as kina and seaweed, moved among the slightly bemused crowds.
Magician Nick Nickolas, from Melbourne, said the festival represented a more colourful Auckland than he knew 10 years ago.
"Where there was grey concrete before there are now busker-allocated areas with people on unicycles - I think that's great.
"When I first worked here years ago, Kiwis didn't really recognise buskers - they'd give you 10 cents. But now at least they might give you enough for a beer."
Street performer Gary Animal said the response to the festival had been very positive, but he felt New Zealand men were too shy to appreciate buskers. "They're very timid, and don't like being the centre of attention. When I pick them out as volunteers they go all sweaty and run away. Then again, I am dressed in a pink tutu."
Strongwoman Mama Lou (real name Lindsay Lindberg) performed an act she hopes to enter in the Guinness Book of Records. Held upside down by two men from the audience, she attempted to tear a phonebook in half.
"Yesterday it was so hot I was exhausted. My thighs were quivering, and it took me almost a minute to tear it. But the crowd went crazy."
The 168th Anniversary Day Regatta, one of the biggest one-day yachting events in the world, starts today at noon.
