It come as several regional councils in Victoria including Ballarat, Hepburn and Golden Plains weigh up whether to designate Melbourne Cup day a public holiday instead of their local show day.

Melbourne Cup became a statewide public holiday in 2008 but councils can apply to have an alternative full-day or two half-day holidays.

Ballarat is among the councils yet to decide whether to continue allocating a holiday for its show.

The Ballarat Show will be held on ­November 10 to 12 this year.

Between 6000 and 7000 people are believed to have packed through the gates last year on the annual public holiday on Friday which marked the first day of the show. 

Ballarat mayor Samantha McIntosh confirmed the issue would be debated by the new team of councillors in the council chamber in the coming months.

She said it would be up to councillors whether or not they opted to enforce a shake-up of public holidays.  

Cr McIntosh said it would be a tough decision for councillors.

“We know that for families, schools and community groups across Ballarat the show day weekend is very important to them and they look forward to it every year,” she said. 

“But from a Commerce Ballarat perspective there implications for local businesses in having the system the way that is and there are certainly positives in aligning region shires with the cities to have a unified approach to Melbourne Cup Day.”

Commerce Ballarat vice-chairwoman Hayley Coates said the flow-on effects of additional public holidays enforced on businesses in recent years, including the statewide AFL Grand Final Day holiday, had been “astronomical”.     

A survey of Commerce Ballarat’s more than 500 members found 80 per cent were in favour of scrapping the Ballarat Show Day holiday in favour of a public holiday on Melbourne Cup Day.   

“Melbourne Cup Day is a slow productivity day for anyone who deals business outside of Ballarat,” Ms Coates said. 

“Most years, it falls during the same week as the Ballarat Show Day holiday which effectively makes it a combined two days of low productivity in one week which results in an incredible loss of revenue for our members.”