The Industries Fair

Press, Volume CX, Issue 32382, 22 August 1970, Page 12

The Industries Fair

The New Zealand Industries Fair, which opens in Christchurch today, is firmly established as the annual opportunity for manufacturers and consumers to meet each other and discuss problems and preferences amid a varied range of exhibits of products and processes. The fair testifies more impressively with each succeeding year to the fact that Christchurch has become much more than the market city of a predominantly farming province; it is now one of the major manufacturing centres of the country, where industry is growing rapidly in size and diversity. The fair’s popularity, too, is growing. When it was first held in its present form shortly before the Second World War it had about 30.000 visitors; last year there were 130,000; and this year the organisers have good grounds for expecting the attendance to reach 150,000. Colour television and a circus will add to the fair’s attraction as family entertainment. This is the ninety-first year of the fair, which grew out of the “Winter Show” first organised by Christchurch manufacturers in 1879. It is also the thirty-third, and last, fair to be organised by Mr R. T. Alston, the executive director of the Canterbury Manufacturers' Association. Mr Alston has become widely known in New Zealand, and beyond, as “Mr Industries Fair”. His retirement marks the end of an era; his work for the fair, and the province, has been enormous. His last fair promises to be one of the best.