Mountain Scene - My Winter Fest sensory overload

I don’t remember it being this hard, partly due to my early onset of dementia, partly because it gets much harder with age. 

The all-day, all-night grind associated with ensuring the festival and its many extravagant courses are knocked off and enjoyed is a young man’s game yet many of us would-be Peter Pans are not willing to pass the baton on just yet. 

The great thing is, with four days to go, we will continue to defy our weary bodies, adult jobs, positions as role models in the community, family responsibilities, mortgages, credit card bills and gym routines to suck every last bit of life out of the southern hemisphere’s premier party. 

I will continue to don the Speight’s speedos and my bountiful collection of other fancy dress to run, swim and slide semi-clothed around the Wakatipu and hope that many of my fellow familiar-faced festival lovers do the same. 

Winter Festival 2012 has delivered a stiff uppercut of entertainment, accompanied by the usual side effects of a sore liver and sleep deprivation. 

With plenty of action still to come, rest – much like powder up the Peak – must be taken wherever and whenever the opportunity arises. 

One can blame the strenuous workload coupled with excessive socialising on the atmosphere of festival week for weary eyes but it’s the sheer amount of visual stimulation available that should shoulder most of the blame. 

Speaking of visual stimulation, Queenstown Pole Studio, WOW! 

They’ve been embracing the festival with the same vigour that they do the dance pole – and have taken over from the always glamorous Hush Spa girls as the bare flesh crusaders of Winter Festival 2012. 

Outfit of the festival to date has to be Philippa from ASB Bank’s semi see-through undies which won her best or more ‘inappropriately’ least dressed in the Undy 500 – such a visual symphony would strain even the most well-trained eye. 

It’s not just the eyes suffering. The ears are burning too. Flight of the Concords showed why tickets were harder to get than free parking downtown, putting on a ridiculously humorous masterclass of musical comedy witnessed by a packed house at the Events Centre. 

How two average Kiwi lads whose content on face value is something you would expect out of school kids mocking the lyrics of the boring songs they are forced to perform at school could be delivered with such comedic genius that it leaves the crowd and indeed the world in awe ... and also be so relevant: “You could be a part time model ... but you better keep your normal job” is a perfect summary of the Queens­town condition. 

Winter Festival – the perfect training ground for physical and sensory endurance. 


Mark writes a regular column for the Mountain Scene - View orginal HERE