Editorial: Rotorua will pile in for kick off

The International Stadium, or "The Hangi Pit" as we locals like to call it, has seen some huge crowds piling in for some big rugby matches over the years, most recently the Bay of Plenty Steamers' clash with the touring British Lions in 2005. Another was during the 1987 Rugby World Cup when Rotorua hosted the play-off for third and fourth between Australia and Wales.
More than 30,000 people packed into the stadium on both those occasions and they were fantastic occasions.
Given our stadium capacity of 35,000, organisers of this year's Rugby World Cup are hoping for the same come September and events and venues operations manager Crispian Stewart isn't concerned about the currently low ticket sales for the games being hosted in Rotorua. Neither are we.
At the moment, you can only get tickets as part of packages, you can't just buy a few tickets to a certain game.
Anyway, Rotorua people are notorious for leaving things like buying tickets to events until the last minute, unless they think they might miss out.
There's not likely to be a huge rush on tickets for the games Rotorua is hosting - Ireland versus Russia, Fiji versus Namibia and Samoa versus Namibia. They would not be considered must-see games would they?
Locals will decide as late as possible whether to go. They will decide based on factors like the weather forecast and their level of interest in the particular match and/or their desire to be part of the whole Rugby World Cup "festival" we're being promised.
For some, it will be a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to be part of a Rugby World Cup tournament and that may outweigh a lack of interest in who is actually playing.
We're also being asked to "adopt" the visiting teams for their match in our city. Representatives from Samoa and Namibia who have already been here to check out our facilities have asked that locals support their teams.
Those involved in Cup preparations here are hoping people will get caught up in the whole fanfare and atmosphere and the tickets for Rotorua games are very reasonably priced at $30 for adults and $15 for children.
Rotorua needn't worry about being labelled among the worst in terms of tickets to games sold so far.
As Mr Stewart points out, some of the other regional centres have smaller capacity than Rotorua's stadium so that's making their ticket sale percentages look good.
When the time comes, Rotorua will be there.