Hundreds of people enjoyed listening to live music from the comfort of their own homes in Ballarat on Sunday afternoon.
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The annual Summer Sundays concert series organised by City of Ballarat was livestreamed from Sovereign Hill.
The concert series is usually hosted at the Ballarat Botanical Gardens over three weekends in January.
It was moved to Ballarat tourism attractions this year due to restrictions on crowd numbers and a move to support local operators.
Clare Bowditch, CW Stoneking and Juan Alban performed to a limited crowd at Sovereign Hill on Sunday afternoon.
City of Ballarat Mayor Councillor Daniel Moloney said the decision was made to continue the event series in a contained way to show support to the tourism and arts sectors and to provide entertainment for the community.
"It is a pity we have had to host it as a mostly online event, but hopefully we start to see restrictions eased more in the coming weeks because we are keen to start having events again," he said.
"This is one way to encourage people to get back to major tourism attractions.
"We encourage locals to go back to those attractions and encourage family and friends to join them because they suffered quite severely during 2020."
The audience was capped to 70 people, with 40 people winning VIP passes and entry to Sovereign Hill.
"We still want to bring life back to the city and our artists have done it particularly tough as well," Cr Moloney said.
"Having people in the performing arts given the opportunity to do gigs is also important."
Sovereign Hill deputy chief executive Katrina Nitschke said it was amazing to have people back at the attraction again.
"What we know is people are really familiar with Sovereign Hill and love it from right across Victoria," she said.
"But there are people that need a little bit of a prod to say this weekend or these holidays are the reason to come to Sovereign Hill.
"There is always something different happening, but it helps to have something that triggers people to visit."
Summer Sundays next week will feature performances from Ella Hooper, Haley Mary and Connor Toomey livestreamed from the Ballarat Wildlife Park.
The Ross Wilson Trio, Benny Walker and Candy Wade will perform for the January 24 event livestreamed from Kryal Castle.
Cr Moloney said council was keen to have events return to the city as restrictions and the situation with COVID-19 allowed.
"Tourism is our biggest sector for employment and plays a massive role through to accommodation and hospitality sectors," he said.
"Events are important to our economy but are also important to the wellbeing of people to get out and connect with each other.
"At the moment we have to do it in a safe way that is consistent with restrictions.
"To have small safe events will be key to give people a chance to enjoy the beautiful city we live in."
Cr Moloney said council was focusing on the Begonia Festival as one of the city's bigger events.
"At this stage we are thinking in the first half of 2021 we are going to have to do things differently," he said.
"We are staging the Begonia Festival over weekends so we can spread it out.
"Events are going to be spreading out over bigger distance and bigger periods of time, giving people more time and space to get out and celebrate and do it in a safe way.
"We are all really keen to get out and celebrate together.
"But unfortunately this is the challenge we are still finding ourselves in when it comes to events, certainly until a vaccine is widely rolled out and authorities have confidence large numbers of people can meet again."
Visit the Summer Sundays Facebook page to watch the livestream.
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