What to expect from the Toowoomba Royal show in 2021
The show has been a Toowoomba institution since 1860, but this year’s event is set to look a little different to years gone by.
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Before COVID-19 plagued the world, the last time Queensland’s oldest agricultural show was cancelled was during the five long years of World War Two.
Despite last year’s cancellation setting the show society back somewhere between $350,000 to $400,000, Royal Agricultural Society of Queensland chief executive officer Damon Phillips said the 2021 show would return, if a little bit different to previous years.
“Under the current industry health plan, we’re able to accommodate for up to 10,000 per day through the gates,” he said.
“There’s various levels of cleanliness, signage and contact tracing regulations and procedures you need to adhere to in order to host this amount of people, so we have had to change a number of things to accommodate for this.
“We’re encouraging everyone to pre-purchase their tickets online this year and competitors will have to sign in using a QR code before they access the showgrounds when they are coming to deliver their entries.”
Mr Phillips said these COVID-Safe measures had cost around $30,000 to implement but was confident this had been money well spent.
“Darling Downs Health would like to see Toowoomba become the example of a COVID-Safe event and in effect will be the first of the large shows to get underway again so we’re eager to get everyone online and encouraging contact tracing and scanning in and out so we can know who was within the grounds at any minute of any day,” he said.
Unfortunately, several popular categories and events will not be going ahead this year to comply with a number of new COVID health regulations.
“We made the decision early to cancel some of the livestock events that were sharing housing to allow for better social distancing, so the prime lambs, goats and alpacas won’t be going ahead.
“We’ve also had to cap our horse events, we’d normally run six days of horse competitions as the second biggest horse competition in Australia, but that’s now been cut back to three and we’ve moved all dairy cattle and show dog events forward so they occur before the show.
“Some of the classes also elected to cancel this year because of their concerns and the additional workloads involved with all the additional contact tracing particularly with the stewards.
“Woodcraft and cooking are no longer happening, and apiculture made the call to cancel yesterday because under the new COVID rules you can’t taste anything, and all food and produce must be thrown out as soon as judging is completed.”
The dates have also changed to previous years, with the 156th Toowoomba Royal Show running across Friday, April 16 to Sunday, April 18 instead of the usual Thursday, Friday, Saturday format.
“This is the first time we’ve ever done this, so Friday is now the show holiday and the show closing their gates at 2pm on Sunday afternoon,” Mr Phillips said.
“But a lot of the Toowoomba show favourites patrons have come to love will still be happening with a lot of the entertainment we had lined up for last year back again so I think people will be in for a great show experience.
“We’re also trying some exciting new things this year including more roaming performers as well as a return to focusing more on the agriculture side that country shows are known for.”
Tickets for the Toowoomba Royal Show will be available online via the website from March 1.
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