After a tumultuous week for local music fans, Ballarat is likely going to play host to a major music festival late this year with an international headliner.
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American R&B musician Khalid revealed in April he would be coming to Ballarat on November 30.
The City of Ballarat is also working toward a major event, hosting as many as 24,000 patrons that would be held on the same date.
While details are yet to be announced, the hope that plans will come together for Ballarat's biggest music event to date has got fans and the hospitality industry alike excited.
It comes a day after beloved live music venue Karova Lounge announced its forthcoming closure.
Khalid was nominated for five Grammy awards in 2018, and his latest album Free Spirit was number one on the US Billboard 200 when released in April this year. When Khalid's Australian tour was announced, only Canberra and Ballarat were missing venue details.
Speculation has been rife on the internet that Khalid will be performing in Canberra as part of the Spilt Milk festival, which happens every November in the nation's capital.
A website has appeared online, khalid-canberra-ballarat.com.au, which ties the American singer's Ballarat and Canberra performances together.
Some of the speculation is that Ballarat will be getting a spin-off edition of the Spilt Milk festival on November 30, similar to Bendigo's major annual festival Groovin The Moo.
For comparison, the Maitland edition of Groovin The Moo had around 21,000 people through the gates for the one-day festival in April last year.
Suitable locations for the event are yet to be finalised but another touted venue which could handle multiple show stages and thousands of people in Ballarat is Victoria Park. Mars Stadium, which has previously been promoted as a major music venue by City of Ballarat, has a capacity of 11,000 including 5,000 seated.
There are also issues about the impacts of very large scale crowd events on the playing surface of Mars which is now at a AFL standard.
One of Ballarat's last large music events, where Powderfinger played at North Gardens for their final Sunsets tour, hosted 10,000 punters under one tent in 2010.
But the ensuing impact on the North Gardens ground at the time, part of the original Wendouree swamp, was hotly debated afterward.
More recent large concerts at the lake, including Nick Cave and the Red Hot Summer Tour held later in the dry of Summer, albeit with significantly smaller crowds, have not suffered a similar legacy.
But Victoria Park which has hosted major events as diverse as a scout jamboree, cycling carnivals and even an army base over its long history has ample room for the demands of a large scale event.
