The president of the association, Rose Blackett, said the resort was the furthest south the conference had been held. Organisers were considering bringing programmes to the ''south of the South'', in areas such as Invercargill and Gore, as many people there had missed out on tickets.
Children, and some adults, participated in workshops on subjects including mathematics, origami and robot-making.
In total, 95 children and 130 adults, including teachers, principals and parents of gifted children, attended the conference and, due to the high demand, Ms Blackett said the association hoped to organise an educational psychologist to be available in the South to assess children for giftedness.
''A lot of children benefit from having an assessment with a psychologist.''
However, there was an international shortage of people trained in such work.
She said about 50 people from Central Otago attended, and a similar number for the children's group.
During the weekend, it was shown a diagnostic manual used by paediatricians and psychologists included giftedness in the manual.
This is considered a major step as there are ''a lot of gifted children that are being misdiagnosed'' with disorders such as autism and ADHD.
Ms Blackett is a director of Seng, an international group which has been lobbying for giftedness to be included in the manual ''for a long time''.
She was pleased to announce awareness for giftedness was increasing and this was evident in the number of teachers and principals present, though it was noted ''it would be really good for the Ministry of Education to come on board''.
She said the ministry put a sizable amount of funding towards helping children who are four, five and six years behind in the educational system, but not a lot for children who are four, five and six years ahead.
The ministry does have an advisory board, which Ms Blackett is on, but she was critical that this group was rendered insignificant as it did not meet often.
''And yet these children are important - they are our future.
''We think there's a lot of good things being done in individual schools ... but there's a long way to go.''
