The weather gods that looked after this year's Queenstown Winter Festival saved a special blessing for the last day, yesterday.
For the most part, the 10 day celebration of winter, comprising more than 50 events, has had the perfect combination of snow on the mountains and clear roads downtown.
That is apart from ice closing the state highway and disrupting flights on Friday and strong winds playing havoc on skifields yesterday afternoon.
Festival manager Lisa Buckingham admitted she was worried when rain and wind threatened yesterday's community carnival, but then the weather changed.
Just before 5pm, she said: ''It's just like someone knew we wanted to put on a carnival, because it's come clear, the rain's stopped and there's actually blue sky again.''
How did she rate the festival?''It's been fantastic. It's the 41st festival - we came out of a 40th anniversary and we really wanted to make sure that we kept the momentum going and I think we've really achieved that.''
Ms Buckingham said a great addition this year had been the Sony Mobile Evening Sessions, which provided after work entertainment at Earnslaw Park.
Personal highlights? ''I thought the opening party and fireworks were particularly good. The fireworks display was fantastic.''
Queenstown Chamber of Commerce chief executive Ann Lockhart said the festival added a huge commercial kick to the start of winter.
It is estimated the festival attracts tens of thousands of people each year and adds $55 million to the local economy.
Ms Buckingham said it was hard to gauge how many people attended events because so many were free. The ticketed events had strong numbers.
''It's fair to say we were on a par with the previous festival and in some circumstances entries have been up in some of the events - we had double the Birdman entries on last year.''
Before planning for the next festival, for which a firm date has not been set, there are several months of sorting out the financials, surveys and debriefings.
Most of the key sponsors, including headline sponsor American Express, are on multi year contracts.
Yesterday, $16,000 was raised by the charity fundraiser Queenstown Pure NRG duck race, in which 40 plastic ducks floated down Horne Creek, in central Queenstown. The corporate winner was Naylor Love and best dressed duck was David Reid Homes.
On Saturday, well known multisporter Steve Gurney, of Queenstown, came out of retirement to win the suitcase race at Coronet Peak.
His ride was a $10 purchase from the Salvation Army shop.
''It does take a bit of prep. I polished it. The second place getter, I know he ski waxed his.''
Gurney, a nine time Coast to Coast champion, shredded his ''Turbo the Snail'' suit in the final, and appeared to suffer a painful hamstring injury but he still limped down the mountain to sign up for the Dash For Cash.
Later, Hamish Garrick (18), of Queenstown won the men's dash for cash race, local endurance mountain bike racer Erin Greene (32) won the women's race and Queenstown Resort College chief executive Charlie Phillips won the veterans' title.
