Lights of Lobethal cancelled for 2020 because of COVID restrictions
For the first time in more than 40 years, the popular Lights of Lobethal festival will not be held, the latest Christmas event to fall victim to the coronavirus pandemic.
Adelaide Hills
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The Lights of Lobethal is the latest Christmas event to be a casualty of the coronavirus pandemic.
In the latest blow to the festive season, the annual event, which attracts tens of thousands of visitors to the town, will not be held this year.
Lights of Lobethal vice chair Marianne Foristal said the organisers were “very, very saddened” to cancel the two-week event, but felt they had no choice.
“We tried our hardest to run this event, but we were up against the odds,” Mrs Foristal said.
“It’s a community festival and the whole town lights up and there’s markets, nativity scenes.
“It runs over a couple of weeks – not just a one-night event – and it just made it a little hard to do it under the COVID management plan that is required.
“We are feeling shattered.”
She said on a balmy summer’s night, more than 10,000 people would flock to the Lobethal main street to enjoy the festival.
“Walking down the mainstreet … it’s bumper to bumper with people,” Mrs Foristal said.
“You can’t do that in these conditions, with the restrictions that we have.
“Christmas is going to be very different this year for a lot of families, not just in the Hills but right throughout.”
She said the event meant everything to the town.
“There’s the goodwill, there’s money coming in to the community for all of the businesses, it’s quite a happy, uplifting event and it just makes the whole place feel quite buoyant,” she said.
Mrs Foristal said last year’s festival was cut short because of the Cudlee Creek bushfire, but this was the first time in the event’s more than 40-year history it had been cancelled.
The announcement comes days after West End owner Lion Nathan confirmed the brewery Christmas lights display would not go ahead because it was not possible to keep crowds socially distant.
The 2020 Adelaide Carols by Candlelight event at Elder Park has also been scrapped because of COVID, and this year’s Christmas Pageant will go ahead, but in a small format at the Adelaide Oval.