City Beat: Ekka takes huge financial hit

The operator of the Ekka has taken a huge hit to its finances due to the cancellation of the annual show for the second consecutive year. But organisers says the show will go on next year.

The Royal National Agricultural and Industrial Association, the operator of our beloved Ekka, has taken a huge hit to its finances due to the cancellation of the annual show for the second consecutive year.

But the 146-year-old organisation says it can survive the current lockdown that has meant not only no showbags and dagwood dogs for another year but heartbreak for country people who rely on the Ekka for social connection with the city.

RNA‘s recently released annual report shows a bruising 40 per cent slide in total revenue from $38.4m in 2019 to $22.7m last year. Earnings, excluding Federal Government grants and one-off land sales, fell by $4.5 million over the year resulting in a loss of $3.1 million.

The biggest declines were seen in revenue from the operation of the annual show which dropped from $16m in 2019 to a mere $980,000 last year.

An empty Ekka Showgrounds during a snap lockdown in Brisbane. Picture: NCA NewsWire / Jono Searle

RNA chief executive Brendan Christou says the latest Ekka cancellation will have a significant negative impact on its operations but he was upbeat about next year. “We have been here for 150 years so we are not going away,” says Christou.

Christou says the RNA‘s diversification over the past couple of years, including the opening of the Royal International Exhibition Centre in 2013, meant it was better positioned than in the past to ride out the financial storm.

“Ekka now only accounts for 50 per cent of our revenue as opposed to 80 per cent in previous years,” he says. He says RNA has been able to run the annual Camping and Caravan and 4x4 Outdoors shows under Covid safe rules.

Savanah Fisher packing up the games in Sideshow Alley after the Ekka was cancelled due to COVID-19, Bowen Hills. Picture: Liam Kidston.

“We have become very flexible at planning,” says Christou. Christou says the financial impact of the Ekka cancellation was not the only consideration, with the social side of the Ekka that brings country and city people together equally important.

“The Ekka gives country people respite from drought and floods so they will miss that this year,” he says. ”And city people will miss seeing all the Akubras in the city.”

The show was previously cancelled in 1919 due to the Spanish Flu epidemic and in 1942 when the grounds were used as a World War II staging depot

Christou says the key to a successful Ekka next year was vaccination rates. He says this year some judging of beef has been completed off site and other exhibitions such as cooking and art had already been completed.

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Originally published as City Beat: Ekka takes huge financial hit