Poor weather leads to attendance decline at Sydney Royal Easter Show

Poor weather, including two days of heavy rain over the Easter weekend, led to less than 810,000 people visiting the 2015 Sydney Royal Easter Show.

The number represents a decline on 2014, when the Royal Agricultural Society of NSW (RASNSW) advised of “around 850,000 people” attending, and 2013, when 860,000 attended.

While retaining the mantle of being ‘the largest event in the southern hemisphere’, Show organisers offered half price tickets for youngsters on the final day of the Show (Wednesday 8th April), along with two-for-one carnival rides.

Those who attended the Show watched almost 16,000 Sydney Royal awards proudly presented, while others were here to meet farmyard animals, ride the carnivals, eat show-food-favourites on a stick and enjoy 12 hours of free entertainment.

The event also continued to attract a growing number of international guests, with 23,000 people visiting from overseas in 2015.

Commenting on the 2015 Show, RASNSW Chief Executive, Michael Kenny, stated “city audiences were given the opportunity to learn about Australian agriculture, the hard work of our farmers and where our food and fibre comes from.

“Over 50,000 pieces of fruit and vegetables from NSW and South East Queensland were meticulously judged, 28,000 litres of fresh milk came out of the Dairy Farmers Working Dairy and 600 chicks were hatched over the course of the Show.

“We brought world class entertainment to the Show this year – Mr Boom from the USA, Mario on the Wheel of Death from Brazil and the Zimboyz who hail from Africa.”

This year saw 100 international competitors making their way to the Show from all over the world, including Spain, the USA and the Czech Republic.

Show highlights included:

Animals – with over 14,000 creatures calling the Show home over two weeks.

Learning about agriculture and where food comes from proved the biggest attraction with three out of four Showgoers visiting the Food Farm and Farmyard Nursery.

In the Food Farm:

• 65,000 Junior Farm Hands Passports were stamped
• 15,000 children weighed themselves on the cattle scales 
• 7,500 children earned their tractor licences
• 6,000 honorary Jillaroo and Jackaroo licences were awarded
• 215 kg of grain was milled
• 1 tonne of flour was used to bake Petey Pies
• 9 tonnes of tropical fruit was cut and given away to sample
• 25,000 Junior Farm Hands Activity Books given away
• 840 bottles of milk were fed to baby lambs and goats
• 5,600 rice paper rolls were made by children

The Farmyard Nursery was home to over 800 animals, including 300 ducklings, 160 sheep and goats, 150 chicks, 130 chickens, 30 mice, 20 ducks and geese, 10 rabbits, four pups, four guinea pigs, three turkeys, two deer, two donkeys, one pony, one alpaca, one llama and one cow.  

Food - several records were set in 2015, with the grandest being scones with jam and cream at the Country Womens Association Tea Room. Over 14 days, 415 volunteers baked a record breaking 48,000 scones. The biggest scone day was Easter Sunday, with the ladies selling 5,053 scones.

Showgoers consumed: 

• 30,000 Cheese on a Stick
• 80,000 Chips on a Stick
• 5,000 Cakes on a Stick
• 5,000 Waffle Dogs

75,000 cheese toasties were made with 10,000 loaves of bread, one tonne of butter and two tonnes of cheese. To wash it all down, 14,000 boxes of lemons were used to make 30,000 cups of lemonade.

Showbags  -  in the Showbag Pavilion pug masks barked up a storm, with 7,000 making their way onto the heads of Showgoers. All up 1.25 million Showbags were snapped up by happy Showgoers.

Entertainment - this year, the huge main arena spectacular entertainment in Spotless Stadium was Xtreme Korruption featuring Mr Boom, who blew himself up 28 times using 168 sticks of dynamite over the course of the Show.

The D-MAX Precision Driving Team clocked up 280 laps of Spotless Stadium, travelling a total of 128.8 kilometres, on both two and four wheels.

The incredible fireworks displays each night lit up the night sky for nearly three hours across two weeks.

Over 250,000 people also enjoyed the roars and thrills in Dinosaur Ice World.

Attractions - new to the Show this year, the ‘Star of the Show’ Ferris Wheel spun 5,600 rotations at 15 kilometres per hour. The ride is the largest fully transportable Ferris Wheel in Australia, weighing 100 tonnes and needing four semi-trailers to move it around the country.

The Super Slide was again another big ticket item this year, with 150,000 people sliding down the colourful ride in the Kids Carnival.

Main image: @christine.knight via Instagram

5th April 2015 - FIVE SYDNEY ROYAL EASTER SHOW WORKERS HURT FOLLOWING AFTER HOURS SLIDE RIDE

3rd April 2015 - CAKE ON A STICK A HIT AT SYDNEY ROYAL EASTER SHOW

25th March 2015 - COMPREHENSIVE RISK AND SAFETY ASSESSMENTS UNDERTAKEN IN ADVANCE OF 2015 SYDNEY ROYAL EASTER SHOW

9th March 2014 - DUKE AND DUCHESS OF CAMBRIDGE TO PUT ‘ROYAL’ INTO 2014 SYDNEY ROYAL EASTER SHOW 

15th August 2012 - WITHOUT VOLUNTEERS AGRICULTURAL SHOWS 'WILL CEASE TO EXIST'

​14th December 2011 - RAS’ PETER KING TO HEAD MCEC

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