Princess Anne will put the ‘royal’ in the Sydney Royal Easter Show when she touches down in Australia to open the annual event this year.
Anne, the second child and only daughter of the Queen, will represent her mother as the guest of honour at the show come April.
The event is hosted by the Royal Agricultural Society of NSW, a non-profit dedicated to celebrating “agricultural excellence and rural resilience”.
In a statement to the Seven Network, organisers confirmed the Princess Royal was “specifically coming to Australia in her role as patron of the Royal Agricultural Society of the Commonwealth.”
She will “open the 2022 Sydney Royal Easter Show, where we celebrate our bicentenary.”
Princess Anne, 71, previously opened the show in 1988.
As well as patron, Anne is also president of the Royal Agricultural Society of the Commonwealth. The RASC connects agricultural shows from across the Commonwealth to share skills and knowledge.
It was founded in 1957 by the princess’ late father, the Duke of Edinburgh, who was the organisation’s president for 50 years.
A royal show
The Sydney Morning Herald reports four representatives from Buckingham Palace are already in Sydney scoping out the city for potential spots on Anne’s itinerary.
Details are still under lock and key, but there are hopes she might include a visit to farming regions in her (undoubtedly packed) travel plans.
The Easter Show runs from April 8-19.
There will be a thanksgiving service for the life of Prince Philip at London’s Westminster Abbey on March 29, so it’s unlikely Anne’s tour will begin before then.
The memorial service will be attended by family, friends, dignitaries and representatives.
The royals at the Sydney Royal Easter Show
Since Queen Victoria dubbed the event “royal” in 1981, the Sydney show has welcomed several members of the British royal family.
The Queen is the only reigning monarch to attend the show. She was a guest in 1970, accompanied by husband Philip, eldest son Charles and Anne.
As well as opening the show in 1988, Anne judged angora goats in a competition.
The Duke and Duchess of Cambridge also attended the show in 2014.
The visit, part of a three-week tour of Australia and New Zealand, was the couple’s first trip overseas with their son, Prince George. He was only nine months old at the time.
As for the last time British royals visited Australia, that honour goes to the Duke and Duchess of Sussex, Prince Harry and a then-pregnant Meghan Markle, who crisscrossed the country in 2018.
The Sydney Royal Easter Show made a glorious comeback last year after the 2020 event was canned due to the pandemic.
It was its first cancellation due to a public health emergency since the Spanish influenza pandemic in 1919.
Last year, 800,000 people attended the event over its 12 days, breaking five attendance records since it moved to Sydney Olympic Park in 1998.
It generates a whopping $250 million in economic activity each year. Much of that goes to agricultural industries, as well as regional and rural communities.
