The winner of Miss Mount Maunganui's new online format has been announced, almost three weeks after the annual beauty pageant competition was held.

Miss Mount Maunganui 2015 winner Maaia Reid-Bennett. Photo: Facebook.

Mount Maunganui 16-year-old Maaia Reid-Bennett was crowned the 2015 winner on the ZM Black Thunder's Facebook page on Thursday after entries opened on January 2-3.

The annual competition made the transition to online voting for the first time this year, breaking a 60-year New Year's tradition of a beauty pageant-style event at Mount Main Beach.

But why? NZME central region brand engagement manager Matt Davy says organisers thought the traditional pageant system 'was getting a bit trashy”.

'For that reason we gave it a rest for the year, with the view of hopefully bringing it back in its former glory next year because it's kind of world famous in Mount Maunganui. It's just one of those legendary things.

'It's trying to make it classy, but then it's still the beach and you don't want people wearing their evening gown on the beach.”

For six decades, bikini-clad beauties have been invited to grace the beach stage in a bid to be crowned Miss Mount Maunganui on New Year's. This year, the competition ran across two days on January 2-3 and encouraged entrants to have their picture taken on the beach opposite Mount Drury, with photos uploaded to zmonline.com for a week-long public vote.

The public made up 50 per cent of voting online, with the other half judges' voting.

'By taking it online we found a lot of people, who otherwise wouldn't have entered, came forward and said they felt more comfortable.

'All they had to do was get a photo, they didn't have to stand on the stage in front of their peers and families and friends.

'It actually worked quite well and I think we reached a different audience as well as a result.”

But did moving the competition online ruin the competition tradition? 'I think change is good and occasionally a break is needed,” says Matt. 'I would love to see the original way of it being done come back, but that's a decision we'll make later in the year. But I think it was good to try something a bit different.

'It took away the whole judges making all the calls and opened it up to the public and it became a voting scenario online.”

Matt says the competition received 40 entries for Miss Mount and Mr Mount, with more than 500 votes across the voting week.

'We had about 40 entries in total for Miss and Mr Mount, which is more than we've had for the previous versions , which is pretty good I think for a first time running online,” says Matt.

'But it really comes down to the finalists and their friends and family getting everyone on board, telling their peers to vote and spreading it on social media.

'You don't have any of that when it's just a staged event and you've got three people making all the calls.”

Mr Mount Maunganui 2015 winner Liam Whareaitu. Photo: Facebook.

Despite other media reporting the first-time online competition went off without a glitch, Matt told SunLive there were some problems, including having to push forward the competition date.

'We did get delayed a little bit because the days we were intending to do everything we had some horrible Mount weather for summer, so we did have to push everything back as a result.”

Matt admits the time taken to choose the top five Miss Mount and Mr Mount finalists, upload the competition, and collect and count the online votes didn't go as planned.

'Being the time of year it didn't go exactly and as smoothly as we would have liked but there wasn't a lot we could do about that.”

While previous Miss Mount competitions have invited entrants to perform a talent on stage in their bikini and answer questions, this year's online format only required a photograph to be taken.

'It wasn't a competition on looks,” says Matt. 'A photo can speak a thousand words. It came down to finding the personality in the photo.

'You notice the difference between someone who is just standing there smiling and someone who has their surfboard and is really getting into it. We had a girl who had just been out fishing, she had her fishing rod. They were all just so different.”

'The girl who won [Maaia] had her surfboard, she's a surfer chick from the Mount so she fits that part really well. I just don't want people to look at it and say we were looking for the best looking person.”

Mount Maunganui 16-year-old Maaia Reid-Bennett was crowned the 2015 winner, the first local winner since Gypsea Harrison in 2010.

Liam Whareaitu, 19, was crowned Mr Mount, with the Little Miss Sunshine competition left off the beauty pageant schedule this year.