Fieldays had one of its biggest turnouts this year with 133,588 attending the four-day agricultural event at Mystery Creek.

NZ National Fieldays Society CEO Peter Nation was pleased with the showing.

“I was delighted with the overall show. The level of investment and professionalism by exhibitors, combined with reasonably good weather has resulted in record crowds,” Nation said.

He said further growth is in the pipeline.

“The board have signed off on a five year strategy,” Nation said.

“As part of that we see our ability to look at the opportunity for new events and grow the actual base, particularly around our core objectives.”

Nation said the 47 hectare site, including carparking, is full for Fieldays, but he thinks they can still grow the event.

“By using park and ride, so using bus and other means of getting people to the event, means that we can actually grow the number of people through the gate,” Nation said.

“But it’s really important that the people we bring through the gate are people that add value to our event.

“I think we need to continue to look at the opportunity to bring exhibitors that help grow, or meet those objectives of advancing agriculture and bringing country and town together.”

The event has grown immensely since the first Fieldays, according to Society president Peter Carr.

“The very first Fieldays in 1969 had 80 sites,” Carr said.

“The variety of exhibitor that’s sitting here now is truly amazing.”

Carr said this all started when someone wanted to bring town and country together.

“The city folk met with the farmer on a mutually acceptable piece of ground and took an interest in each other’s lives,” Carr said.

“And 49 years later we’re still doing that, that’s our principal thing that drives us, that and promoting agriculture and agricultural education.”

this year the Society spent more than a million dollars on the event.

“We spent a lot of money this year, improving areas for the customer experience,” Nation said.

One improvement included having two lanes for people to come through gate one, as this is where 60% of Fieldays visitors enter.