A quiz attendee, who wishes to remain anonymous, said she travelled from Tauranga for a fun night with friends at the quiz night fundraiser for the Kaimai Settler Committee, held at the community hall.
However, she left feeling "sick", she told The New Zealand Herald, after a group came dressed in white hoods that covered their faces and white robes. One even carried a petrol canister.
In a statement today, the committee told the Herald no one raised any issues on the night so they decided not to act, but had convened this afternoon to review the matter.
A committee representative said following the incident, the committee had contacted the team involved and "strongly suggested" they apologise.
The Ku Klux Klan, sometimes known as the KKK or the Klan, is the moniker of several past and present American white supremacists, far-right terrorists and hate organisations.
The quiz attendee said she had her back to the door as the group arrived, but an audible gasp from the crowd made her turn her head.
"The noise [the crowd made] was really hard to describe," she said
At first, she thought she was misinterpreting their costumes and they unfortunately just looked like the KKK, but it quickly dawned on her this was not the case.
"There definitely would have been other people that were kind of disgusted, but it did feel like there were a lot of people who thought it was quite funny as well," she said.
She said she found the group "intimidating" as they shouted to the crowd, though she was not close enough to hear what they were saying.
"It made me feel sick," she said.
However, a representative from the Kaimai Settlers Committee denied the group was commended, and claimed they "had discussed removing them".
"However, nobody approached anyone with concerns at the time or throughout the night. Had they had, we would have acted," the representative told the Herald.
"We have approached the group concerned and strongly suggested they front with an explanation and apology for their actions."
