THE BAND CONTEST.

New Zealand Graphic, Volume XXXIV, Issue 9, 4 March 1905, Page 24

THE BAND CONTEST.

It will be gratifying tw all the Auckland people who interested themselves in making the great North Island Band Contest recently a success to learn that a substantial profit has been made on the undertaking. The committee, of course, did not set out with that idea, but the patronage of the public was so generous and the interest taken in the band performances so great that the committee is now in a position to declare a profit of about £5OO. This money will go to the different Auckland bands which guaranteed the expenses of the contest.

The total expenses of the contest are not yet known, but they will be considerable, close on £lOOO. That sum includes £385 cash prize money, and nearly £2OO for gold and silver medals, besides which there were the expenses of the theatre, the Domain, the advertising and the expenses of the general management. The expenses still to be paid in-clude-duty and freight on the trophies which have yet to arrive from England. Tlie total value of the trophies presented amounted to about £l2O, making the total value distributed in the contest about £7OO. It is probable that some bonuses also will be voted to those who so energetically and with such success carried out the contest.

The total attendances of the publie are estimated roughly at 35,000. There, were about 20,000 at the Domain last Saturday, about 7000 on the previous Wednesday, about 3500 in the theatre on the test selection nights, about 3000 on other nights, and a miscellaneous attendance during the days, which brings the attendance total up to about 35,000 for the whole week, excluding, we presume, bandsmen, of whom there were between 300 and 400 in uniform during the week. This is a remarkable total, considering how little brass band music has been encouraged in Auckland during the past, and it is regarded as a very hopeful sign amongst the bandsmen, a sign of awakened interest, which, it is hoped, will not die out as so many Auckland enthusiasms do.