This weekend’s festival of colour event is now cancelled

Several events have been postponed and cancelled following the recent news that COVID-19 has reached the city of Toowoomba once more. Now the Festival of Colour has sadly joined them.

CANCEL THE COLOUR: Toowoomba’s Holi Festival, better known as the Festival of Colour has been cancelled following news a Toowoomba Cafe was listed as a COVID-19 contact tracing site after a patron who visited the cafe last Friday tested positive for COVID-19, according to the shopping centre’s management. Chelsea Tom and Swaroopa Raju at the Festival of Colour at Toowoomba Showgrounds in April 2019.

As the latest Brisbane COVID-19 outbreak reaches the Darling Downs community, more events have been postponed and cancelled.

The latest event to be affected is Toowoomba’s Holi Dhuleti Celebration, also known as the Festival of Colour, which was due to take place this Friday at Lake Annand Park.

“It is with deep sadness and heavy hearts that we announce the cancellation of this year’s Holi Dhuleti Celebration Toowoomba in the face of emerging COVID-19 concerns in Toowoomba,” organisers said.

Holi Dhuleti, more commonly referred to as Holi Festival, is one of the three major Indian religious festivals which has become popular around the world for it’s colourful, fun festivities.

Event co-organiser Yaju Mahida said the decision was made last night after a Jamaica Blue Coffee at The Ridge shopping centre in Kearney Springs was added to the Queensland Health list of COVID-19 contact tracing sites.

“We’re still hoping to hold some sort of small colour festival event if things calm down over the next few days, but right now with the way things are we thought it was for the best to cancel the event,” Mr Mahida said.

“We may still have some kind of colour festival celebration in a few weeks to months if we aren’t able to hold anything this week.”