The Pak’nSave Rangiora Festival of Colour 2023 erupted into a rainbow of colours at Victoria Park.
But it all could have been sadly cancelled. Organiser Karl Horworth says the day before he looked at the weather forecasts and it wasn’t looking good.
‘‘They all said ‘showers’. ‘‘It was very nerve wracking. We had to make a decision as there were a lot of people, businesses, logistics to consider if the event was cancelled.’’
He held his nerve and looking out at the light drizzle early on Sunday morning he made the choice to continue with the party.
‘‘Again the weather sites said rain all day, but Rangiora turned on a beauty. ‘‘In fact it only started to rain again after 3pm, just as we were packing up.’’
Many hundreds of spectators, families and visitors to the town were treated to a cascade of colours in the air accompanied by singing and dancing.
‘‘It went fantastically, every one loved it.’’ Karl says more than 2000 people came along and for him the highlight was watching the children both young and old have fun .
‘‘At family events you often watch as parents stand back and let their children have all the fun, but here the kids dragged mum and dad into the crowd and got them covered with colour dyes.
‘‘It was great to see them having just as much fun as the kids were.’’ Karl says a big ‘thank you’ to all the companies who sponsored the event, and to all the supporters, stall holders, musicians and volunteers who turn up on the day.
‘‘We had so many great local acts on stage throughout the day— from African and Japanese drums, the Rangiora High School kapa haka group, Xuan Wu Chinese dancing troupe of Christchurch, Irish dancers and much more.
In between performances emcee Dave Greensmith was working hard as he tried in vain not to get covered by the brightly coloured powders being thrown around by the crowd.
Karl says the Festival’s philosophy is to address the lack of any large-scale event celebrating the multi-cultural nature of the rapidly growing North Canterbury population.
‘‘It was a great day out and the stories I heard later about the multi-coloured people walking about the town made it more of a special day.’’
