The launch of the inaugural Winter Games NZ in Queenstown this afternoon signals the start of 10 days of international scrutiny for Otago's snowsports industry.
More than 220 accredited media workers - 22% of them from overseas - will be following the sporting aspirations of more than 800 competitors from 40 countries.
Sky TV, which holds the television rights, is sending about 70 staff.
Pre-event analysis by World Television has forecast an international television audience of 350 million.
The Winter Games NZ is an International Skiing Federation (FIS) event and will be attended by FIS secretary-general Sarah Lewis, of the United Kingdom.
Some media players have questioned whether the Winter Games could really attract such a large television audience in its first year but they do not doubt enough overseas interest exists to boost Queenstown and Wanaka's reputation in the northern hemisphere as an off-season training destination.
In athlete terms, the event is smaller than some non-FIS approved international events, such as the recent Interfield in Korea, which attracted 1200 skiers from around the world.
Freeze TV producer Antony Hansen, of Wanaka, has worked at the 2006 Winter Olympics, where there were 600 accredited media organisations, as well as world championship snowsports events.
Mr Hansen said the first Winter Games would be a test case for New Zealand, which was earning a name as a training "epicentre".
"The facilities stack up and word on the street is it is the place to be for the northern hemisphere off-season," Mr Hansen said.
His company has been supplying snowsports footage to Australian and New Zealand channels for more than six years and is filming the games for Sky Sport and Prime TV.
SnowTV content manager Martyn Davies, of Christchurch, is contracted to Winter Games NZ to provide highlight clips of for websites and publishers.
Mr Davies said it was too early to say how large the international take-up might be until he "got into it" next week.
"I would hope it would be in the thousands . . . and typically SnowTV gets 1000-3000 views for every video played."
Getty Images national account manager Arran Birchenough said five staff would work at the Games, compared with 80-100 staff at a Summer Olympics and 50-60 at a Winter Olympics.
Getty Images distributes photographs globally.
Winter Games organisers say it will probably be December before a post-event analysis is completed and the impact on the international snowsports scene known.
Chief executive Arthur Klap is confident the viewer forecast will stack up because of the quality of the competitors and the number of countries entered.
"We have more Olympic athletes, world champions and X-Games medalists than we ever expected... That level of entry is certainly encouraging for our office and our board," Mr Klap said.
All competitor, country and media attendance targets had been exceeded, which was fantastic for a first-time event, he said.
He initially thought about 100 media workers would attend.
"But to attract this is fantastic, given it's never been held before."
It has been projected the Games will return $50 million, mostly to the Otago region.
The event was on track with its $3.5 million budget, Mr Klap said.
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