THE Mount Gambier Agricultural and Horticultural Show Society continues to forge ahead with plans for its 2020 spring show, with a heavy local focus the key to navigating any remaining COVID-19 restrictions come October.
The cancellation of the Royal Adelaide Show was followed by numerous regional shows pulling the pin, including at Penola, Millicent and Kingston, however the Mount Gambier instalment – held since 1861 – has been given the green light for now.
A number of significant measures have already been established as part of the 13-person committee’s COVID19 plan, with a scaled-down version of previous years predicted to help deliver the large community event.
Society junior vice president Tammy Flier said organisers had not secured some large attractions from previous years given several entertainment providers required cross-border travel.
She said the much-loved sideshow alley would still be present with operators also introducing their own COVID-19 protocols.
With uncertainty surrounding future COVID-19 restrictions and identifying a need to support the region’s economy, Ms Flier said the event would help showcase homegrown enterprises.
“There have been so many local businesses who have not been able to get out to markets or other events to sell their products so we wanted to focus on those and help get them up and running again,” Ms Flier said.
“Even though everything is still up in the air at the moment, we hope it will go ahead but it would have more of a community focus with more local entertainment.
“We still want to make it as enjoyable as we can because I think a lot of residents are looking forward to getting out and about a lot more.”
Ms Flier said the committee had developed a COVID-19 safety plan, describing the process as challenging given the multiple spaces on site, as well as the volume of staff and volunteers involved and pedestrian flow through the showgrounds.
“This will impact the number of people going into the hall at the show to look at the arts and crafts section, as well as the cattle and trading spaces,” Ms Flier said.
“It will have to be determined by how many people we can have in there and how many volunteers we have at the time to enforce those restrictions, how we enforce them and whether we are confident enough to enforce it.”
The junior vice president said there had been some internal concerns around enforcement of restrictions, calling on the community to cooperate with the largely volunteer-run event.
“We have to weigh these sorts of things up and we need to monitor how many people are going into the separate areas and how we are going to get people to move through an area while social distancing,” she said.
Arts and crafts committee chair Kerry Hill said despite some changes, the annual event was one to look forward to for the region’s residents.
“We will still have some cattle shows including beef display and we will go ahead with the horse competitions,” Ms Hill said.
“Other regions are not having a show so we are hoping many from the Limestone Coast will come and support us.”
Ms Hill said the committee was prepared to call the event off if restrictions prevented it from occurring.
A final decision is expected to be made on August 31, well in advance of the planned October 23 and 24 event.
