Joe Dodgshun

Not satisfied with 765 million viewers of the inaugural Winter Games New Zealand events in 2009, organisers are hoping the 2011 games will draw more than 800 million viewers.

The foliage is golden, the forecast is for fine weather, and the fashion will be of the historical and wearable-art varieties for the annual Arrowtown Autumn Festival, which starts tonight.

The inaugural Queenstown Bike Festival has been hailed a success by event organisers, with an estimated 1500 to 2000 people coming to the town over the last week and a-half.

One of the final events of the inaugural Queenstown Bike Festival had a flying finish yesterday afternoon, as hundreds of spectators and several DJs gathered to watch competitors in the Corona Dirtmasters Downhill race career down the Brecon St Stairs.

Winter Games organisers say Queenstown could host adventure films and beer festivals, comedy performances and expos as part of this year's event.

Hundreds of quilting tutors and devotees have this week descended on Queenstown from all over the world for the 14th National Patchwork and Quilting Symposium, which started yesterday.

This year's New Zealand Winter Games could have an "economic impact" of $50 million for the areas involved, not counting the $4 million budget spent mainly in the region, event organisers say.

Despite some Queenstown events attracting smaller crowds than expected, organisers of the Festival of Colour say they look forward to hosting further festival performances in Queenstown in the future.

About 100 amateur golfers descended on Millbrook Resort, Arrowtown, at the weekend for the Millbrook Masters tournament, which runs until this Friday.

The inaugural Queenstown Bike Festival was launched in extreme style on Saturday with the six-hour Super D enduro race in the Ben Lomond Forest.

After a summer of renovation, the Queenstown Ice Arena opens today under the management of Canadian brothers Ted and Dan Graham, and their father Brian.

Attempts to gain access to the land at the centre of the Nevis River damming debate have been met with a "blanket refusal" from lease-holder Pioneer Generation, Fish and Game told an Environment Court hearing in Queenstown on Wednesday.

The inaugural Queenstown Bike Festival opens tomorrow, marking the start of a week and a-half of family, competitive, and extreme cycling events.

Sandwiched between two UK touring jaunts, Wellington band the Phoenix Foundation is playing Queenstown and Wanaka shows this weekend as part of the Southern Lakes Festival of Colour.

Issues surrounding Arrowtown's proposed boundary and a development in the township - first raised in September 2009 - are unlikely to be resolved before the end of 2012, following an Environment Court hearing before Judge Jon Jackson in Queenstown yesterday.

Five years on from its inception, the Queenstown Resort College has grown from a modest operation catering for 11 students to a fully-fledged tertiary institution with a student population of just under 300. In the first of a series of profiles on QRC graduates, Joe Dodgshun speaks to chief executive Charlie Philips.