I wonder if the south island jump carnival would be better run over a shorten time frame. Like Wednesday the lead up day and then the nationals on the Saturday, with maybe a synthetic day on Thursday or Friday.
Might bring back more of a carnival feel about it, when I first started bringing horses down about 15 years ago everyone stayed down(or up from deep south) for the whole time and it was great fun, that seems to have changed in recent times. I wonder if it's only 4 or 5 days you might get people back and staying down the whole time, fly down Wednesday and home Sunday. Also for those with horses it'll shorten up the time away from stables so more are also likely to stay down instead of heading back in between Saturdays.