Hororata Highland Games Mark 15 Years After the Quake

The 15th Hororata Highland Games return to Hororata Domain on Saturday 7 November, 15 years after a quake-hit Selwyn village invented the festival. The Hororata Community Trust is selling tickets now, with no gate sales on the day and under-16s free, and more than 10,000 people have been turning up in recent years.

What began as a rural recovery day in 2011 is now New Zealand’s biggest Scottish festival, still run by the same registered charity, still pouring profits back into the hall and the groups that feed the crowd.

The 15th Games Return on 7 November

The Trust has billed this as 15 years of Highland heart and Kiwi spirit. The 15th Hororata Highland Games on 7 November sit on the Saturday before Canterbury Anniversary Day, the slot the event has held since the start, at the Domain in Waikirikiri Selwyn, 45 minutes from Christchurch.

It is the only South Island meeting that stages the full traditional programme in one day: heavy athletics, Highland dancing, solo piping and drumming, pipe bands, and tug o’ war. Competitors already travel from across New Zealand and Australia. Entries opened on 1 September. Future dates are locked in for 6 November 2027 and 11 November 2028.

Gates open at 7.30am for competitors and 9am for the public, with the arenas running through to 4.30pm. Over 120 market and food stalls are booked. Most food outlets are community fundraisers, which is the point of the day as much as the caber toss at Hororata Domain Highland Games.

Hororata Built the Festival After the Quake

The Greendale earthquake struck at 4.35am on 4 September 2010. No one in Hororata was killed, but the stone church and the pub came down, heritage houses cracked, and halls across a 280-square-kilometre rural district needed repair. The Trust later said there was no government money for rural recovery, so the district backed itself.

A small group drew on the Domain’s long history of shows and invented a Highland Games. The Hororata Community Trust was formed in March 2011 and registered as charity CC46824 on 31 July 2011. The first Games were held the following November. The Trust says 10,000 people came, a figure it still uses as the founding crowd.

Cindy Driscoll, executive officer of the Trust, has been blunt about how little Scottish event craft the founders had. “When the community started the Games back in 2011, most of the committee hadn’t even been to a Highland Games, let alone run one,” she said after the 2025 meeting. They learned on the Domain. The 2021 edition was cancelled. Every other year has run.

THE ROAD FROM THE QUAKE

1. 4 September 2010: Greendale earthquake wrecks Hororata’s stone church and pub and leaves district halls damaged.
2. March 2011: Hororata Community Trust forms; founding trustees still sit on the board.
3. 31 July 2011: Trust registers as charity CC46824.
4. November 2011: First Hororata Highland Games; the Trust says 10,000 people come.
5. 2021: Games are cancelled.
6. 29 July 2024: Selwyn District Council hands the 1890 Hororata Hall and adjoining land to the Trust.
7. 8 November 2025: 14th Games draw a record 11,000 people.
8. 7 November 2026: 15th year of the Selwyn festival lands on the Domain.

Alex Bruce, the 2015 chieftain and a director of Adelphi Distillery in Scotland, left the kind of verdict a Canterbury committee could not have written for itself.

I was impressed with how well organised the event was and by the number of people who attended which was considerably more than most Highland Games in Scotland. The Hororata Highland Games is most definitely authentic, paying tribute to many Scottish traditions, but I really enjoyed the new elements that have been introduced and the ‘Kiwi twist’ was very special.

Alex Bruce, 2015 Chieftain, Adelphi Distillery

Clan Hororata Still Runs on Volunteer Hours

The workforce has a name. Clan Hororata is more than 200 volunteers, some local, some from outside the district, who put the day up and take it down. In 2025 the Trust counted 230. Driscoll said the clan is not drawn on a map. People come from Australia, Auckland, Wellington and Dunedin because they want the work.

Kate Foster, the 2022 chieftain and the first local given that title, put the fundraising job in one line that the Trust still prints.

The Games is very much at the heart of our community. It showcases our rural area to the world, celebrates our history, brings people together and provides a fundraising platform for groups.

Kate Foster, 2022 Chieftain, Hororata Highland Games

Charities Services figures for the year ended 31 March 2025 show how large that platform has become. The Trust reported $1,651,858 in income and $375,795 in spending. That income year includes the hall transfer period, so it is not a pure ticket take; it is the charity’s whole book. Ainsley Walter chairs the board. Driscoll, who grew up on Ryton Station at Lake Coleridge, runs the office from Coalgate.

On the ground, the money is smaller and closer. Nineteen community groups used the 2025 Games as a fundraiser. Trust materials from 2024 said local groups raise $20,000 to $30,000 collectively at each event. Food, parking, and stall labour are how a pie cart becomes a hall repair.

What the 2025 Record Crowd Delivered

Last November the model hit its highest mark. The Trust recorded a record crowd of 11,000 people at the 14th Games on Saturday 8 November 2025, with 800 competitors, 21 Scottish clans, and 20 pipe bands in the chieftain’s welcome. Those numbers sit behind last year’s Hororata Highland Games and set the bar the 15th edition has to clear.

THE 2025 DOMAIN IN FIGURES

• Crowd: 11,000 people, the Trust’s record.
• Field: 800 competitors from New Zealand and overseas.
• Clan Hororata: 230 volunteers on the day.
• Clans on site: 21 Scottish clans in St Andrew’s Square.

The welcome is where the Kiwi twist is not a slogan. Kapa haka group Ngā Puāwai Ō Tāwera called in chieftain Michael Fraser Milne, then the massed bands played. Heavy athletes spent the day in the Contact Energy arena that still carried Manawa Energy’s name in 2025. Australian Terry Sparkes won the Oceania Heavyweight Championship for a fifth year. Connor O’Brien of New Zealand took the men’s Hororata title. Frances Fitzpatrick of Australia won the women’s title.

2025 CHAMPIONS

Rachelle McDowell of Ashburton told the Trust her daughter Charlotte had made the family sit through pipes and dancing nine years earlier. In 2025 Charlotte played in four events and took a third-place medal. Driscoll called that the spirit of the Games: people take up pipes, drums, dance, or heavy athletics because they saw them here. Returning heavies treat the Domain as a serious annual stop. A caber has been snapped in two on that grass. The 2021 cancellation is still the year a lot of kilts never left the wardrobe.

Contact Energy Takes Over the Heavy Arena

The 2026 heavy field has a new name over the gate. On 4 August 2026 the Trust said Contact Energy would continue the backing Manawa Energy had given, after Contact completed its purchase of Manawa on 11 July 2025. Contact is now the naming rights partner of the heavy arena, and it will also back the Glow Walk when the Hororata Glow Festival returns in 2027.

Driscoll tied the deal to Lake Coleridge, where Contact has generated power for generations, and to the Trust’s own books. “Contact is part of our community through Lake Coleridge for generations, so this is a natural partnership built on a shared connection to the area,” she said. “As a self-funded charitable trust, long term partnerships like this are vital. They help us bring people together through our events, support local organisations and invest back into our communities. Without partners like Contact, we simply couldn’t deliver everything we do.”

Ryan Kane of Contact’s community relations team said the Trust’s work matches the company’s aim of helping local communities thrive. The Oceania Heavyweight Championship stays the bucket-list title. The Oceania caber is 5.5 metres and 67 kilograms. The Hororata Stones are five stones from 90 to 140 kilograms, lifted onto barrels against the clock. The 1pm caber toss and the 4pm stones are the two heavy set pieces on the 2026 programme.

How Saturday 7 November Is Set to Run

The Trust’s 2026 programme is still marked as subject to change, but the spine of the day is set. Feature times run from a 10.30am veteran car parade to the stones at 4pm. Highland dancing covers 32 categories, including six Canterbury West Coast championships and three South Island championships. Tug o’ war has free entry this year, paid for by Signature Homes. Harraways Junior Warriors is open to primary and intermediate children, as a school side or a group of mates.

On-the-day entries still cover the FMG Kilted Mile, Best Dressed Lad and Lassie, and the Hororata Pie Eating Competition. Dogs are banned. Tickets bought in advance are the only sure way in; if the event is not sold out, online sales can continue on the day until 2pm. There are ATMs on site, and the Trust still tells visitors to bring cash because some stallholders do not take cards.

HAVE A GO ON THE DOMAIN

• Mitre 10 Mega arena: Caber toss, sheaf toss and farmers walk, free, 9am to 3.30pm.
• Hororata Target Shooting Club: Have-a-go shooting, 9am to 4pm.
• Tugging rig: All ages, free, on the More FM site.
• Ellesmere Pipe Band: Have-a-go pipes, free, 11am to 3.30pm at the band arena.
• Junior Warriors: Children under 14, free, 12.30pm to 3.30pm.
• Team Hutchison Ford vehicle pull: Teams of five, free, late morning and early afternoon on the race track.

Around that, St Andrew’s Square holds clans and genealogy, the Scottish farmyard runs a petting zoo, pony rides and sheep shearing, and the Society for Creative Anachronism stages medieval combat on the hour. City of Christchurch Pipe Band plays around the grounds. Woolston Brass sits in the chieftain’s welcome with the massed bands and the ceremonial sword. That is not extra colour. It is how a one-day rural show holds a family for seven hours, which is how long one 2023 visitor told the Trust she stayed.

Hororata Hall Is the Next Build

The Games were never meant to be the last job. Funds from the festival are going into the Hororata Hall renovation, which Driscoll has called a cornerstone for the district. The hall dates to 1890. Selwyn District Council transferred title of Hororata Hall and the adjoining land to the Trust on 29 July 2024, after eight years of talks, and the council’s Long-Term Plan 2021/31 allocated $1 million (less legal costs) to go with that handover.

The Trust now carries the running costs. A 5-hectare endowment paddock given by Sir John Hall is being put back into lucerne so the hall has a harvest income and hire fees can stay low. Playcentre and Carol’s Closet already use the building. In May 2026 the Trust asked builders to register interest for a staged restoration. Preliminary design is done. Resource consent was being lodged. Phase One, the new build, is expected to start in the first half of 2027.

That is the through-line from a wrecked church in 2010 to a Domain that now takes 11,000 people in a day. The 15th Games will open with kapa haka and massed pipes on 7 November. The hall work is scheduled to begin the following year.