Snow Sports New Zealand is to hold its annual awards night in Queenstown as part of this year's Winter Festival.
Chief executive Ross Palmer said he was delighted to be part of the festival.
"We thought it was time to step up the level of our awards dinner and when we approached the winter festival organisers they were keen for us to be a part of that," he said.
It would be the third annual awards night since Wanaka-based Snow Sports NZ was restructured as a national sports organisation. The previous two awards dinners were held in Wanaka.
"A lot of our athletes and families are in Queenstown so we thought it would be great to have it over there and being part of the winter festival is a great way to do that," he said.
"With so many successes over the past year, including Adam Hall's gold medal at the Paralympics and Jossi Wells being named the overall world champion of freeskiing, we have lots to celebrate," Mr Palmer said.
The dinner, for 170 people, would be held at the Winter Festival's Ice Box on Ballarat St on the opening night of the festival, June 26.
It would be broadcast on Sky Television and national channels.
Some of the elite snow sports athletes would feature in the festival opening parade before the dinner.
At last year's awards, Adam Hall was named the Adaptive Snow Sports Athlete of the Year and the Overall Snow Sports Athlete of the YearThe organisation was seeking individuals and businesses to sponsor tables for $1000 at the awards dinner.
"This enables us to offer the remaining individual tickets at an affordable level for athletes and family members and to host our nominees and key media at the event," he said.
He hoped to continue a partnership with the festival.
Festival director Simon Green said he was "stoked" to have some of New Zealand's highest-achieving snow-sport athletes as part of the opening parade.
"The Winter Olympians and paralympians did not get a chance to be received and welcomed by the public when they came back from Vancouver, so if they are in our parade we can give them a good cheer for representing New Zealand to such a high standard," he said.
