The Ballarat Beer Festival is "90 percent likely" to run this Saturday although organisers are still waiting for the official green light.
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Director Ric Dexter told The Courier they intended to press ahead with the event, which is scheduled to run in North Gardens off Wendouree Parade.
"We're still waiting on the bureaucracy," he said shortly after Premier Daniel Andrews held a press conference on Wednesday morning. "They did say they were looking at all the events from this weekend."
He said he had already had to give instructions for the event infrastructure to be delivered from Thursday onwards.
I am so financially committed. I have just got to roll that last dice and hope that it goes the right way
- Ric Dexter
"[State government officials] already agreed to my COVID-safe plan, they reduced the numbers, which I have complied with, I've got seating for everybody."
The event is planned as a ticket-only, cashless affair, and Mr Dexter also had to remove musical element and reduce it to a single day rather than the full weekend.
He said they submitted a COVID-safe plan back in December, and did not have a response until around a fortnight ago. "We still haven't had the CHO [Chief Health Officer] sign-off on it. It just takes forever to get anything done."
"Running events are a traumatic, anxiety-ridden experience anyway, particularly when 80 per cent of the tickets are sold in the last two weeks."
"It's just a nightmare dealing with the bureaucrats. They never give you a straight answer - they just don't tell you what's going on."
He said that when the strict lockdown measures were announced last Friday, ticket sales stopped abruptly but started picking up again quickly after Mr Andrews' Wednesday announcement.
There are now two four-hour sessions, with around 90 per cent of tickets sold out for the afternoon session and 500 tickets left for the evening.
"I am so financially committed," Mr Dexter said. "I have just got to roll that last dice and hope that it goes the right way."
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