Royal Adelaide Show, a fanfare in down under

The Royal Adelaide Show is an annual agricultural show which is held annually for 175 years. The show was first opened in 1843, was a folk cultural weekend that lasted ten days which began on the last day of August or the first Friday in September. Last year, the Royal Adelaide Show was held from 31 August to 9 September 2018. The event was initially focused on exhibiting equipment, animals, sports and recreation related to agriculture and livestock. However, as time goes by, some new aspects such as urban lifestyles and modern playgrounds also enliven this grand event.

Luckily, I still had an opportunity to come at the closing day of the most significant event in South Australia last year. My friends and I got student tickets for $ 19.5, so we departed for Adelaide Showground, a location specifically designed for this annual event since 1925, after several previous events were held in areas closer to the city centre.

The process of buying a ticket is quite easy. By visiting the event website, we can purchase the tickets before coming and also can choose a ticket as our role. Children under five years old, students, and seniors get special lower prices (Concession Tickets). Tickets can also be purchased at the Showground gate at a higher price and a long queue process. With such choices, online ticketing has more advantages, cheaper and environmental friendly (reducing paper to print tickets).

The exciting thing about the Royal Adelaide Show is that there are 63 competitions, ranging from livestock competitions, arts and crafts, food and wine-making (wine), honey and jam products, to physical agility and technology competitions. Participants register themselves and the work contested before the event starts. The winners are then announced during the game (10 days), and the products and brands/names of their businesses are on display at the Showground. In addition to product competitions, there are also technology contests.

I had the opportunity to watch the excitement of a drone camera racing match directly. This match attracted the interest of spectators because it used a formula one race match style but was followed by flying cameras. The drivers control their drones from the side of the field, and their cameras must be controlled following the path that has been made in the middle of the venue. Occasionally, a few small goals are positioned at several points as obstacles that must be passed by the competitors.

Before nightfall, we stopped briefly at the show bag area. This area is unique because it sells a package of goods or food that is combined with a unique theme in one bag. At first, this show bag was an industry event to promote their products by distributing bags containing free product samples.

But nowadays, most of the show bags are sold at $ 10 to $ 20, and some of them are famous brands. Some show bag seller outlets provide massive discounts at the end of the event to spend their merchandise stock.

The way how the show bag displays their products is quite tempting, by hanging the contents of each show bag according to the package offered. For example, a backpack package containing small bags, toiletries, belts, hats, cooking materials, and some trinkets for sale for $ 15. It attracts students like us.

Not wanting to be too long spending money there, we went to the playground arena. The atmosphere at night here was imposing with colourful lights, the screams of the passengers of the vehicle, and the sky that slowly changed from orange to dark blue. After maghrib and eating french fries, we were again presented with a fun soccer match. I have never seen before a ball match can be played by cars. Yes, this soccer match is played by cars that move swiftly to lead a giant ball to both sides of the goal. The audiences laughed a lot, and occasional cheers break when the ball shifts position and is led by another team of cars.

Before going home, my friends and I visited a large stand that was opened by one of the big supermarkets in Australia. In the beginning, I was not very impressed with the stand of this supermarket, but after hearing a few explanations from the officers at the position, it turned out that the Royal Adelaide Show was also a place for supermarkets and big Australian industries to capture the community’s superior products. For example, the supermarket stand that I visited, they also held several competitions such as wine and cake making which the winners would market their products in their supermarkets. Hundreds of fireworks that night were fired into the skies of Adelaide and marked the end of the 2018 Royal Adelaide Show. It’s not just a fun fair, this event has raised the small community business.

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