The Courier understands the Head of the Lake received a tier two permit from the Department of Health and Human Services under the state government's public events framework, enabling up to 5000 attendees at the regatta.

Rowing Victoria was advised on Thursday morning that the regatta would go ahead without spectators.

Ballarat Associated Schools Rowing chair Adam Heath said the decision was made as the five-day locked was lifted on Wednesday on the available and evolving advice at the time.

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"The original permit allowed spectators and when we had the lockdown, we needed to review whether we could have the regatta and it appeared, based on the Premier's advice, that we couldn't have spectators because the advice was no gatherings of over 20 people," he said.

"At no stage did we want to exclude spectators. We wanted to include them and went to extraordinary lengths to prepare plans to have them at the event."

The event's ban on spectators comes as Ballarat hosts two events with capacities in the thousands this weekend in Ballarat Beer Festival at North Gardens and Western United's A-League fixture against Macarthur FC at Mars Stadium.

Mr Heath said the difficulty lay in the inability to make the Head of the Lake a ticketed event to control spectator numbers.

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"The original plan was to have it with QR codes and have very defined spectator areas for students and staff, but as soon as we indicated on Thursday that we didn't believe we were allowed to have spectators, we spoke to council and they changed their infrastructure plan for the regatta for no spectators," he said.

"As I understand it, we're so far progressed with planning without spectators... things like road closures and COVID-safe areas for students and spectators, separate toilets, we had all of these things in place with council but when we had spectators removed, the planning for that was removed and now we can't reinstate that, unfortunately."

Rowing Victoria CEO Ian Jickell said Rowing Victoria applied for all the appropriate permits and had been prepared to continue working with Ballarat Associated Schools to run a COVID-safe regatta.

"We were advised the decision was going to be made by Ballarat Associated Schools and then, as an obligation for the event, we had to advise the DHHS and Department of Jobs, Precincts and Regions that the event was to run without spectators," he said.

"We were disappointed for the many families and Ballarat residents who would not be able to enjoy their annual and long-standing Head of the Lake in a COVID-safe environment."

City of Ballarat Mayor Daniel Moloney said events with crowds were possible with a COVID-safe plan.

"We understand we can't have a big crowd but a modest crowd would've been good given the effort students put into rowing," he said.

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