Every four years, council needs to decide which public holidays to gazette, and in Ballarat, that means choosing to take the Ballarat Show Day off in November, or to follow other cities in Victoria and take Melbourne Cup Day off instead.

This decision has big implications for schools and businesses, and is in effect for three years.

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In 2020, because of the pandemic, council decided to change the November public holiday to Melbourne Cup Day for the first time.

The recommendation in this week's council agenda is to maintain the Melbourne Cup Day holiday for the next three years, until 2024.

According to the agenda, council officers urged considering feedback from the community, stakeholders, and business groups before making the decision.

READ MORE: When the Ballarat Show moves, what should be the future of the showgrounds site?

One of the key stakeholders, the Ballarat Agricultural and Pastoral Society, supported the move to the Melbourne Cup Day holiday, with the agenda noting "they will not be seeking council to declare Ballarat Show Day as a public holiday for the foreseeable future".

Society executive officer Elizabeth van Beek said they made the decision to help other businesses out.

"We've discussed it at our executive committee - we've given it back to council," she said.

"With COVID, it enables businesses on the Friday to stay open, and for the Show, we'd open late on the Friday afternoon.

"We want to help the community, and anything we can do to help and keep our event going successfully, we'll do."

The agenda states no request has been made to the Minister to appoint a day other than Melbourne Cup Day yet, though if a different decision is made, council would need to make a request no later than August 2.

The agenda includes detail on public consultation on changing the date from 2012, and the "targeted consultative approach" undertaken in 2017.

In 2012, 66 per cent of the 4214 responses supported the Show Day, while other 'submissions' (sic), written, verbal, Tweets and through Facebook, preferred Melbourne Cup Day.

It's also stated 12 per cent supported the creation of a Eureka Day instead - commemorating the Eureka Rebellion, this potential new public holiday would take place on the weekend closest to December 3 each year, however the proposal did not receive widespread support at the time.

In 2017, the consultation results again favoured Ballarat Show Day as the preferred date, and as such, Ballarat Show Day was kept as the public holiday until 2020.

Council will decide on the issue at the next meeting, on Wednesday night.

The Ballarat Show usually runs on the second weekend in November - in 2021, that would mean the public holiday would be on November 12.

It's understood early planning is under way for this year's show, after it was cancelled last year.

The Ballarat Agricultural and Pastoral Society is also planning a major move to a greenfield Mount Rowan site in the future, allowing it to expand from its current site on Creswick Road.

While this year's show will take place at Creswick Road, new Ballarat Agricultural and Pastoral Society president Rick Smith told The Courier last year planning work is still under way.

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"We're looking to transform what is essentially just a paddock into a state of the art exhibition centre," he said.

"We recognise we've got a responsibility to the community and the state to continue to showcase rural activities."

According to a council response from last year, the Creswick Road site is Crown land under the Department of Land, Water, Environment, and Planning's jurisdiction.

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