clipped from: www.stuff.co.nz 
Zeal Cuisine owner Louise Bourke said the promised 160,000 visitors to Hamilton failed to reach her doorstep. Ms Bourke, who runs a boutique cafe at the north end of Victoria St, was left with hundreds of surplus burger buns and was trying to sell cuts of meat to friends and family. She blamed the Hamilton City Council for over-hyping the event, which encouraged her to ditch her usual gourmet specialist menu and to open over the weekend. Ms Bourke described Victoria St as a "ghost town" and said ads playing on the radio throughout the weekend telling people to avoid the city had made too much of an impact.
"We were down unbelievably because our regular customers were scared off by the V8 hype."
On top of the drop in customers, he said, restaurants cancelled orders as the crowds failed to show.