The deadly coronavirus pandemic has forced organisers to cancel SpringFest Ballarat for the second year in a row.
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The Rotary Club of Ballarat's SpringFest management committee made the difficult decision to cancel the event, scheduled for November 28, in the best interests of public health.
When held, the market is a huge occasion, hosting 540 stalls and attracting 35,000 people while generating vast sums for the Rotary Club to dispense.
SpringFest director Robert Glass struggled to hide his emotion.
"The Rotary Club of Ballarat and SpringFest committee are very disappointed to make this announcement," Mr Glass said.
"The COVID-19 health crisis is unprecedented and the ongoing changes with snap lockdowns, social distancing measures, and mass gathering restrictions being made in the best interest of public health means that we are unable to plan and deliver the 2021 SpringFest Ballarat event with any certainty."
Mr Glass made it clear it was important not to delay any longer in making the market's fate known.
"It was important to decide on SpringFest now as many stallholders spend months preparing for the market," he said.
"During these uncertain times, we wanted to give everyone as much notice as possible."
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The financial pressures were also significant.
"We couldn't afford to run up too many more costs," Mr Glass said.
"It would have been catastrophic if (we proceeded and) it was called off."
The committee had substantially investigated changing the event's venue.
"This year would have been run at the showgrounds," Mr Glass said.
"That was because one of the requirements with COVID is you've got to have ability to control who is coming in and going out. They also gave us the facilities we needed.
"But when the roadmap came out, there were so many trigger points we were never certain we were going to meet to make it viable.
"To make it viable, we would have needed a minimum of 7500 people. It just wasn't going to happen because, even with the roadmap, there's no guarantee they are going to open it up."
To make up for lost funds, an online raffle has been launched - 8500 tickets, at $5 each, are on offer with a host of generous prizes up for grabs, including a first prize valued at $4000, a second prize at $2200, and a third prize at $1300.
"If the raffle is as successful as it could be, we could raise nearly enough funds to compensate," a hopeful Mr Glass said.
The organisers are looking to return in 2022, realising SpringFest's importance in the calendar.
"I am optimistic about next year," Mr Glass said.
"We would prefer to go back to the lake, purely because of the atmosphere that's there. If we can't, we'd certainly be looking to do the showgrounds."
Raffle tickets can be purchased at https://rafflelink.com.au/springfest2021.
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