SOME of Sunraysia’s major events are bracing to be hit by the pandemic for the second year in a row.
Organisers of the Mildura Show, Wentworth Show, Red Cliffs Centenary, Great Vanilla Slice Triumph and the Mildura Wentworth Country Music Festival are closely monitoring the evolving situation with their events scheduled in the coming months.
GREAT VANILLA SLICE TRIUMPH
The Great Vanilla Slice Triumph, which was to be held on August 14, was cancelled on Friday night.
Before calling it off, secretary Mickey Nelson said she had “everything crossed; fingers, toes and anything else we can cross” a few weeks out from the event, but to no avail.
But the committee have set their sights on holding the event in 2022.
“It will be fantastic and we are hoping and praying, we want the community to get involved like they have before and have more entries,” Ms Nelson said.
“A lot of the amateurs have been holding off due to COVID but we really want to see the grandparents entering in the over 50 section and the parents and kids entering in their sections.”
WENTWORTH SHOW
Organisers of the annual Wentworth Show admit the developments of COVID-19 within Victoria, South Australia and New South Wales are “very worrying” ahead of their event, which is planned for August 28 and 29 .
“We rely on Sunraysia, Riverland and beyond for competitors, exhibitors, traders and patrons which would not be possible this coming week due to Covid-19 restrictions and border closures,” Wentworth Show Society president Marcus Moore said.
“However, we have a little time to monitor what is happening and although our optimism is under pressure we remain hopeful.”
MILDURA WENTWORTH COUNTRY MUSIC FESTIVAL
THE new-look Mildura Wentworth Country Music Festival is scheduled for the last week of September.
Promoter David Storer said all the stars will need to align in order for the event to go ahead.
“I am in two frames of mind at the moment, two weeks is a huge period of time with COVID around, so much can change,” he said.
“I keep saying to myself just leave it a couple of weeks and see what happens.
“With this event, given that it draws people from all over Australia, everything has to be on our side, we can’t have problems in Queensland, Victoria or South Australia or NSW because people come from everywhere and it’s not just the artists.”
Mr Storer said he will make the final decision on whether the event will go ahead in mid-August.
“I hope things will be all good to go ahead but it has to be right everywhere for us to go ahead, last thing we want to do is run it as a watered-down event, if we run it, we want to run it properly,” he said.
“I haven’t gone and booked all the acts in Victoria, which I thought about doing but I thought if I book an act from Queensland and they can’t come then neither can the crowd from Queensland.
“It’s that big of an event, where we would expect to see 5000 people and we don’t want to run it where we only get 2000 people because two of the states can’t come.”
Mr Storer was hopeful the “whole new look festival” would be a crowd pleaser for all ages if it can go ahead.
“We have 50 per cent of our efforts spent on maintaining what was already here, the traditional venues that were always used, they will be operating with same old-style country music,” he said.
“50 per cent of our efforts will be going things such as a kids day out, three day food truck festival, opening concert with Russell Morris and maybe Adam Brand.
“There is a whole new array of events within the event and we are really excited about bringing all these things into making a whole new look festival.”
MILDURA SHOW
Mildura Show secretary Disa Wilson said committee members have been working hard behind the scenes working on various plans to ensure the popular event will still go ahead in October.
“We always said we will plan to have the event and not look at the negative spin-off until such time when we can’t put it off any more,” she said.
“So we are not looking at cancelling until the week before and only if then it looks like it can’t go ahead.
“We will try go ahead in some capacity, what we are looking at, at the moment is to get many local businesses to have sites at the event, that way if Victoria is locked down but regional is able to operate we can still put something on for our community.
“We are trying to make things as local as possible, we are doing all we can to put an event on together that showcases our community.”
RED CLIFFS CENTENARY
WITH the town’s 100 year anniversary to be celebrated this year, Red Cliffs Centenary committee member Ian Cook said four plans had been put in place.
“We have Plan A and Plan B, which see the change in some of the venues; Plan C is to postpone to another time and Plan D is to cancel full stop,” he said.
“Our attitude is that we are going full steam ahead with the planning and naturally we will have to adjust the week before to whatever is happening.
“Everything is in train and progressing well, all planning is running smoothly, everything on the program is in train and will just depend on COVID.”
