Did you fritter your weekend away? Venue and Events Whangarei hosted another enormous event at Toll Stadium last weekend. With well over 5000 people in attendance it really went off with a bang.

Say what you want about the event, however you must agree that Venue and Events Whangarei do an amazing job at promoting Whangarei and Northland.  They have a team that is bidding on events to be hosted in Whangarei. The team works silly hours to complete tasks and every time they have an event they try to get as much as the community involved as possible.

There are many people who focus on Northland as a tourist destination, or even think that we are Auckland’s playground, but let’s face it – we’re our own thing. We have the best environment for aquaculture, agriculture and horticulture compared to the rest of New Zealand. I believe a politician once said that Northland is the breadbasket for New Zealand, and that person was 100% correct.  So why is Northland sometimes treated like a forgotten cousin?

The Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment (MBIE) have done several studies on Northland and shown how we over-produce and look after New Zealand. Even during the bad times, Northland is there doing its best to keep the country going.

These reports encourage Northland to build on their natural resources and to invest in what they call ‘round trips’ of authentic visitor experiences on both coasts and up to Cape Rēinga, and also recommend expanding our forestry processing capability with larger saw and pulp mills, installing larger marine manufacturing facilities, growing international education opportunities here, improving SH1’s capacity to carry freight, setting up a regional digital office and improving digital literacy in youth.The report needs to stress that rail needs to be strengthened and that we need to build on the existing businesses and natural resources of the North.

On saying that, the next big event to hit the streets of Northland is the International Rally of Whangarei in April. This event is essential to travel to for many of those in the motor sport industry, so we all look forward to seeing you there too so we can ‘rally’ behind this country’s top region.