By Emily-Rose Toohey
The postponed Stanthorpe Show has a potential alternative date scheduled for the end of April.
Stanthorpe Agricultural Society president Brett Boatfield said he is having ongoing discussions with Queensland Agriculture Shows to finalise this date.
“It’s a bit of logistics to work it out, but we’re certainly looking at mid to the end of April,” Brett said.
“We don’t want to compete with other shows, so I’m liaising with the president of Goombungee, who’s on that weekend.”
Brett said it was a good decision that the show was not cancelled.
“We had a meeting with the 25 sub-committee chief stewards who showed overwhelming support to basically picking the whole show up and moving it to an alternative date,” Brett said.
“It was pleasing to me in that meeting, they could have said no but they didn’t.”
He said the show will occur on Saturday and Sunday only, with no Friday events.
“It’ll be two nights of entertainment rolled into one night,” Brett said.
“Whilst there might be some things that we won’t have or we can’t have due to the season, like the fruit, we’re thinking outside the box and we’re going to make the most of it.”
Although the main Stanthorpe Show has been postponed, the campdraft will still go ahead on the 29 and 30 January.
“It can run because in the Chief Medical Officer’s directive, it states that an outdoor community sporting event is not subject to the conditions of the directive,” Brett said.
“It’s great to have something on the weekend that the show would have been on.”
Campdraft Secretary Lana Russell said the show society has outside stakeholders that the campdraft does not have.
“There are so many factors in our favour and we can shut down in a heartbeat,” Lana said.
“If the show gets shutdown in such short notice it would prove costly.”
Brett said the campdraft will comply with Covid-19 safe guidelines for spectators, including social distancing and QR code check-ins.
“Apart from that, you’re out on a horse socially distanced, which is quite allowable,” he said.
Brett said under the health directive, a number of conditions were put on shows which prompted its postponement.
“The big thing this year was the fact that they were predicting a Covid increase in cases at the end of January and early February, right when our show was going to be,” he said.
“We just can’t take the financial hit nor do I want to have an event that could be considered a spreader event.”
Brett said he was watching the Covid situation carefully and was monitoring the show society’s expenditure.
“If we had waited any later, we would have had potential financial loss, which is why we made the decision early,” he said.
“I’ve got a duty of care as a president to make sure that the health and safety of our patrons and our people are prioritised.”
He said although the postponing decision was disappointing for the community, he is positive about the possible new show dates.
“I’d like to thank everyone in the community who understood why we did it and were fully supportive,” Brett said.
Nonetheless, if Covid cases rise later this year, he said the Stanthorpe Show will be cancelled for 2022.
