New festival owner Sam Coulthard, tells Mountain Scene bookings aren’t as good as last year, "but we’re still feeling very, very confident that we are close".
"I think there’s a lot of unforeseen things that we didn’t realise in taking this on, like people just don’t have money, the economy, the recession year and everything like that.
"We’re noticing a lot of the companies are supporting us still, but they can’t financially.
"We’re really struggling with sponsorships and things like that."
Coulthard, who along with Odette Rose has taken over the festival from Martin King and Mike Hughes, has had a long association with the festival and is confident they can make it grow.
"This will be our worst year.
"We can only go up from here, I guess."
The festival runs for 11 days and includes the return of the free ‘Pride in the Park’ event on Marine Parade, next to Eichardt’s, on Saturday from noon till 8pm, where all members of the community can mingle.
"If you have got any fears or you don’t like Winter Pride or you think the rainbow community is trying to convert you or anything like that, you can come and see what we do."
The festival is expected to attract between 3000 and 4000 people, many of them in town to ski.
"It’s just another little thing to boost the economy and bring people into town and try and get some more money back into Queenstown for all of our friends that are in bars and need to pay wages," Coulthard says.
