COVID-19 uncertainty forces cancellation of 2021 Port Lincoln Tunarama festival
There will be no tuna tossing on the Port Lincoln foreshore this January with the town’s iconic Tunarama festival cancelled for the first time in nearly 60 years.
Port Lincoln
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The Port Lincoln Tunarama festival will not go ahead next year for the first time since its inception in 1961.
The event’s committee made the difficult decision to cancel the 2021 edition on Wednesday, despite having a COVID-safe plan approved on Monday.
Festival co-ordinator Jane Intini said emotions were running at the time of the decision but the right call had been made.
The event was scheduled to take place between January 22 and January 24.
“I didn’t sleep last night because the decision was so hard to make, people were crying in our meeting, we just all felt sick,” she said.
“On Monday we were given the green light to proceed but then got a call back on Tuesday morning say ‘no you can’t.”
Ms Intini said SA Health asked for preparations to be halted for two weeks amid the statewide COVID-19 lockdown and an emergency executive meeting was then called.
“Our problem is not the lockdown and I really want to stress that,” she said.
“It’s actually about the timing which is just the worst for Tunarama.”
Ms Intini said community safety was behind the decision and the reinstated one person per four square metre rule would prevent the event from being viable, taking attendance numbers from more than 1400 to a little over 300.
“That would make the festival economically unviable,” she said.
“All of our off-site events would have to be cancelled because we simply could not run them and then all of a sudden you are looking at a situation where you are burning money to do something that’s only have a festival anyway.
Usually scheduled in the last week of January, Tunarama has been a staple on the Eyre Peninsula for nearly 60 years, attracting thousands to Port Lincoln and boosting the local economy by millions.
South Australia entered its first day of a proposed six-day lockdown on Thursday to combat the Parafield coronavirus cluster, which has reached 23 cases.
The state’s active coronavirus cases remain at 35 after zero new cases were reported on Thursday.
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