• Mountain Scene invests in its first computerised publishing system. Until then, all news and advertising content was typeset and pages put together at a remote printery from typewritten or hand-written copy and layouts. (A new state-of-the-art publishing system was installed in 2004.)
• A courier pack containing a giant dead rat is delivered to Mountain Scene’s publisher. There is no clue about the sender, nor on the story which no doubt led to the ‘gift’.

1997

• The State-owned Airways Corporation fails in its complaint to the Press Council over Mountain Scene’s Death Dive coverage, a series which chronicled Queenstown’s worst air crash in which six young Aucklanders died. The official flight manual is changed as a result of the tragedy.
• Mountain Scene takes out the runner-up prize in the ‘Best Suburban & Community Newspaper’ category of the Qantas Media Awards.

1999

• North & South magazine names Mountain Scene one of three "best smaller provincial newspapers".

2000
Mayor Warren Cooper imposes an interview blackout on Mountain Scene which lasts 88 weeks until he steps down from office. The reason for the boycott is never made known to the paper. Using the short-cut key, journalists frequently have to drop into council stories a standard paragraph inserted in the memory of the newsroom computer system: "Mountain Scene would have liked Queenstown mayor Warren Cooper’s reaction but for 90 weeks he’s refused to speak to any reporter from the newspaper."

On National Radio’s Mediawatch programme, Listener writer Bruce Ansley labels Mountain Scene "one of the toughest papers in the country" which "distinguishes itself by being a pest".

Queenstown mayor Clive Geddes brands Mountain Scene "the single most destructive force in the community". The mayor was venting his spleen after the paper wrote a story revealing Geddes believed QLDC could put a new council HQ into a planned arts and cultural centre on Stanley Street, later costed at $55m and labelled the ‘town hall complex’. Later the same year, writing in a commemorative special to celebrate the paper’s 30th anniversary, Geddes says: "Mountain Scene provides a strong, independent forum for addressing local issues on a ‘no holds barred’ basis. Long may it continue."

Mountain Scene is runner-up in the ‘Suburban & Community Newspaper’ category at the Qantas Media Awards.

2003
For the second year running, Mountain Scene is again placed in the ‘Suburban & Community Newspaper’ category of the Qantas Media Awards.

2004
In an unprecedented indictment of a NZ newspaper, the Press Council finds the Southland Times "breached acceptable standards of journalism" in duping readers by reporting a non-existent ‘interview’ ripped off from an earlier Mountain Scene story.
For the third year in a row, Mountain Scene is again placed second in the ‘Suburban & Community Newspaper’ category at the Qantas Media Awards.