Rex Jory: The Royal Adelaide Show only uses the Showgrounds 10 days a year – should we move it?
The Show might be a great success 10 days of the year, but for the rest of it most of the grounds remain empty. Is it time for a new home so we can use this prime land? VOTE IN OUR POLL
Opinion
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Is it time to move the Royal Adelaide Show from its current site at Wayville and redevelop what is some of the city’s finest residential and commercial land?
No one questions the popularity and value of the annual Show. It is inevitably a success in terms of crowds, events and displays.
The major showground display halls such as the Angas Hall, the Jubilee, Wayville and Goyder pavilions and the Ridley Centre are crammed with the best produce, machinery, crafts and talent South Australia has to offer.
The livestock sheds are a commentary on the strength and quality of the state’s rural sector.
Sideshow alley is alive with excitement and colour. In the main arena there are spectacular events capped each night with a fabulous display of fireworks.
Great stuff. But it’s only for 10 days. For the rest of the year so much of the 26ha of the showgrounds lays dormant.
The livestock sheds are rarely used outside Show week. Of course, there would rarely be a night when at least some of the pavilions don’t host functions.
They are a great back-up to the Convention Centre on North Tce.
But can Adelaide any longer justify this great slab of prime real estate being unused for so long?
It is a question which has been raised before and the Royal Agricultural and Horticultural Society is invariably quick to defend its use of the Wayville site. No doubt they will again.
The RAHS has controlled the site since the 1920s and hosted the first Show there in 1925. But tradition alone is no justification to retaining Wayville as the permanent site for the annual Show.
The land is owned by the State Government, which has a responsibility to ensure taxpayers are receiving the best value for their dollar. The RAHS believes it is. And it may be right.
But that does not mean the RAHS and Government should not go unchallenged. The showground is historically important but convention and sentiment alone do not justify its existence.
The main arena was once used as a speedway. For many years it hosted weekly trotting meetings. These were traditional events but they faded through lack of support and financial viability.
Things change. What was right for a certain time could not be maintained and justified. Could the land, with its magnificent pavilions, be redeveloped for some other commercial or even residential use?
For example, the main area, so close to the city centre, could be a major sporting centre to complement Adelaide Oval. It could be the focus for a possible bid for a future Commonwealth Games. Or a world-class soccer centre.
Wayville is served by an efficient train service and its own railway station which stands almost silent for many days a year.
The development potential for some of the less-used hectares of Wayville is restricted only by the imagination.
Of course, as I have already flagged, the RAHS and other interested parties will roar with indignation at the mere thought of displacing the annual show from Wayville or the redevelopment of the site.
This is not an attack on the RAHS. But as participants at the 2019 Show pack up their produce and equipment, it is a question which should be opened for public debate.