Welcome to the 102nd year of the Waikato Winter Show.

The Waikato Winter Show Association has played a strong role in the Waikato’s history.  

A page from an edition of the 1938 "Weekly News" features the 1938 Waikato Winter Show held at it's properties on Ward Street, Hamilton

The first Waikato Winter Show was described in an article in the Waikato Times as “The Birth of a Great Institution”. The newspaper also gave the following quotation “history is our inexhaustable treasure house”.

Bringing the 2009 Winter Show together is a grand project and we have looked to past shows for inspiration and tradition in putting this show together. This will be an exciting, thrilling and fun Winter Show. The Winter Show team is making the show bigger and better every year. The Waikato Winter Show is the culmination of the hard work and dedication of the show staff and the association’s executive committee.

The show has well established traditions of bringing quality, professionally run entertainment to the people of the Waikato region.

In 1913 the president of the Waikato Winter Show Association,  Mr William H Paul established the traditions of the Waikato Winter Show by  “offering something of interest to the public almost every hour his Show was open”.*  

Mr W H Paul. WWSA President and Secretary photographed by "The Weekly News" in his role as Secretary in 1956

“The mediocre or average was not for him.”*

“From the inception the Winter Show management realised that formal competitions and displays of work skills were not sufficient to bring people through the turnstiles and hold their interest. Entertainment of a high standard was essential”*

The Waikato Winter Show Association continues this tradition.