ALL READY FOR THE PARTY

Taranaki Daily News, 11 June 1930, Page 14

ALL READY FOR THE PARTY

HOMES OF LIGHT AND COLOUR brightness of once bare haul, room all glittering white. A twenty-first birthday party is nothing without a cake and a gay room to°eat it in. In the last few days the Coronation Hall, usually so bare and dull, has been turned into a home of lovely lights and colours. Palms at the side and across the top of the door give a snug, familiar entrance into the ticket lobby. “Welcome to our 21st Birthday Party,” says a huge streamer very heartily in large red, white and blue letters. All the walls inside -the ticket lobby are clothed in a black material, dotted with flulfy, white bits of stuff that looks like snow. The walls seem to be dressed in the well-known costume of Pierrot. A big Union Jack, with the Royal Coat of Arms at one end, covers the bareness of the open door leading to the hall. Inside the long hall the ceiling, all glittering white, seems to bo raining snowdrops. Far and away down the whole length of the hall the soft white streamers and cunningly arranged strips of fragile paper fall in a glittering mantle. Thin streamers of paper are dropping down and in between are other rows of fluffy snowballs hanging by strings. Here and there are horizontal strips of paper stretching straight across, and the edges of the paper are serrated like the edges of a leaf. Underneath there is all the orderly bustle of the trade exhibits. A few steps down the hall lead to the giant birthday cake, a great white pyramid standing eight feet high and weighing half a ton. On each of the many tiers ar© written some words of celebration in pink icing. Along the base where the faces of the tiers give ample room is written: “21st Birthday New Plymouth Winter Show, 1930,” but on the. brief top tier are written simply the figures “21.” All the quaint conceits that go with birthday cakes are to be seen. Flowers made of icing, tiny silver globules, butterflies and birds, silver horseshoes, hearts and loveknots, ferns and all the other pretty trifles cling to the sides of the cake from base to top. Right on the summit is a small basket of produce—a cherry and other tiny fruit—and mounted on the handle of the basket is a gold monogram. The snow-white cake and the snow-white ceiling make a charming picture together. Leading off from the top of the trades hall is the new section for rabbits. The scheme changes and marks the distinction between the sections. Streamers of red, white, gold and magenta loop and twine above the entrance and crisscross on the roof above. 'SOFT AND CHARMING TONES. »

Following straight through the hall of trade exhibits, one comes to the hall of home industries. In the new hall the swift change in the decorative scheme stimulates the sight. It a hall of quietly impressive colours. Here below the ceiling are looped streamers of red and white and emerald green. The tones are .soft and charming. The streamer notices across the walls and the titles of the stalls* fall into the easy harmony. The spice of variety is felt again when one goes through the second, hall alongside. Here the streamers are red and gold and magenta, and the scheme of the lay-out is cleverly varied. This time the streamers come out front each wall, loop twice and then fall in straight lines down the centre of the hall. With a surety of touch, the streamer titles round the hall have again been made to tone with the decorations.

The giant decorative scheme In the Motor Olympia hall has a definite personality of its own. _ Three huge pink umbrellas, yards in diameter, hang from the ceiling over the shining models. The hall is hung with flags of all the nations, but mostly there are Union Jacks. Hanging in the centre of the far wall is the big red ensign falling in gentle folds. Palms bend themselves along the arches and holly and crossed Prince of Wales feathers cover the walls. As one goes out again another red, white and blue streamer above the entrance hall catches the eye: “Come again to-morrow!” it says. “Bring all your friends.”