Twelve Queenstown women will spend today primping, preening and preparing to show off the results of three months' hard work, strutting their stuff down the catwalk at the Queenstown Memorial Hall during the Ladies Fashion Challenge.
The event, part of the Queenstown Winter Festival, has been three months in preparation, with the women hitting the gym and following a strict nutritional programme before this evening's event. The Fashion Challenge will celebrate the women of the Wakatipu and all they have achieved.
Today's festival activity will provide a welcome rest for those who have burned the midnight oil over the weekend, participating in or watching the 23 events which have been staged since Friday afternoon.
Festival director Simon Green said he was thrilled with the opening weekend, despite some minor disruptions caused by inclement weather on Friday night.
"[On Saturday] we had a few floats that pulled out of the parade, which was a shame. We were all pretty confident the rain was going to ease off in time, which it did," Mr Green said.
The rain forced the postponement of the Mountain Bikes on Snow event at Coronet Peak and the Birdman competition - both of which were held yesterday.
"We're all back on track."
A huge crowd gathered around Lake Wakatipu yesterday afternoon to take in the action on the foreshore and in the water, which included jetsprints, the Splash for Cash and the Undy 500.
"A few of the crowd participated more [yesterday] than they thought they would because we pulled them out of the crowd to participate in the Undy 500 and the Splash for Cash.
"There was a nice big crowd down there [yesterday] that was probably the same, if not bigger than last year, which is not bad considering the mountains were open."
Organisers of festival skifield events will be buoyed by the fact a weather forecaster yesterday said there would be "significant" snowfalls on local fields over the next two days.
Rain closed Coronet Peak on Saturday but 10cm-15cm of snow on Saturday night meant the field could be reopened yesterday.
