Whanganui Vintage Weekend 'brilliant', says organiser

Bruce Ardell starting No 18 Chris Woods' 1924 Austin Twenty at Sunday's Burma Rally, part of Vintage Weekend. Photo / Bevan Conley

Whanganui Vintage Weekend was a complete success this year, organisers say.

The event started on Friday and finished with The Julian Temple Band performing at Lucky Bar + Kitchen on Monday. Vintage cars could be seen everywhere all weekend as could people dressed in eccentric steampunk theme. There was plenty of interesting food options as well as live music on offer.

"It was pretty bloody brilliant really," said Whanganui Vintage Weekend Trust chairman Bruce Jellyman.

"It all seemed to run really, really well and we're happy with things indeed.

"There's been a lot more people on the Saturday and Sunday on the street and round about and being involved.

"More people dressing up which was something we were trying to target without making it compulsory of course," he said.

"The feel on Saturday and Sunday was really brilliant. Lots of people, really good sort of family vibe going on."

Jellyman said organisers interviewed people on the street and there was a survey for gathering information about attendees.

"It was quite noticeable in the survey information that Whanganui people are bringing family in for Vintage Weekend now, which is just fantastic."

There were good numbers of people from Palmerston North which hadn't happened in previous years. There were also more people from Kapiti - an area organisers had targeted.

Jellyman said it was difficult to know exactly what attendance numbers were but estimated 12,000.

"It's very difficult because it's spread over so far it's hard to know whether that's the same people or whether it's new people. We know our crowd is quite transient - people come into town for a while, they go home for a bit so it's quite hard to judge."

Jellyman praised the Dazzle Ball event on the Saturday night.

"For a first go of it, that was bloody brilliant."