COVID claims more Mallee events

A SLEW of Mallee events have been cancelled thanks to the Delta outbreak gripping Australia, with the Ouyen Mallee Root Festival and Patchewollock Music Festival the latest to fall victim to the virus.

In a statement on its website and social media on Sunday, organisers of the Patchewollock Music Festival said “after much deliberation” the committee had made the decision to cancel the festival, which was on the calendar for mid-October.

“It’s incredibly disappointing to share this news with all our supporters, especially considering the excellent lineup of bands that were booked to perform,” the statement said.

In Ouyen, lockdown has led to a double whammy of event cancellations, with the popular Mallee Root Festival and the Ouyen Farmers’ Festival both cancelled last month.

“Unfortunately, with the way things are at the moment, it’s just not going to happen, so we’ve had to cancel again,” Mallee Root Festival president Nathan Grayling said of the event, which had been postponed from March to take place on the AFL Grand Final weekend later this month.

The Farmers’ Festival was to be held on Melbourne Cup day in November.

The cancellations mean 2021 will be the second year running the events have been called off due to the pandemic.

But that hasn’t dampened organisers’ spirits to bring them back in 2022.

“Hopefully 2022 will be bigger and better!” Patchewollock Music Festival president Bryce Harriman said.

Mr Grayling, too, was optimistic about the outlook for next year’s events.

“Hopefully next year we’ll be able to go ahead and work in with whatever restrictions are still in place,” he said.

“As a community too we are going to look into holding a few smaller-scale events in the meantime … but I don’t think anything on a big scale is going to happen any time soon.”