The annual competition, which alternates between the North and South Islands, finishes at Omarama on Friday.
It has attracted 27 pilots from New Zealand, Japan, England, Australia and the United States.
"They are all individuals; they all want to do their own thing. But it's very satisfying," Mr Edwards said yesterday.
Easily spotted on the Omarama Airfield wearing his distinctive red hat, he has been contest director for the past 10 years.
From Tauranga, where he has a business manufacturing and importing Christmas decorations and wrapping paper, he has flown gliders for 45 years.
He did not do any flying himself during the contest, because he believed it was important to be "on the ground and available".
If something untoward happened, there needed to be "somebody being in charge of being in charge".
The competition was followed by people all over the world.
The gliding community was close-knit and people were always interested in what was happening, other than just the nature of the course and who won, he said.
Just before 9am each day, he met the task-setting team and they discussed the weather and forecast, working out how that was going to affect the surrounding area and where they might be able to send gliders.
After that, he organised paperwork and prepared for a briefing at 10am, where prizes were given for the previous day's competition, fines were gathered - which supported the local Search and Rescue - and the day's weather and tasks were discussed.
About 11am, he started organising what needed to be done for setting up for launching and then, after lunch, the gliders assembled on the grid.
Once they were launched, he returned to his office and monitored events until the last glider landed, sometimes as late as 9pm.
"I don't have a beer or break until the last one's home," Mr Edwards said.
While the weather had not always played its part during the competition - yesterday's contest flying was cancelled - there had been some "fantastic" flying days; probably some of the best in the contest in recent times, he said.
