Elmore Field Days cancelled

The 2020 Elmore Field Days, which would have been held in October, has been cancelled due to the coronavirus pandemic.

2019 Elmore field days Picture: Andy Rogers

The Elmore and District Machinery Field Days is the latest event to be cancelled because of the coronavirus pandemic.

The three-day event was due to be held in the first week of October, but organisers cancelled the field days citing the decision was made “in the best interest of public health and safety for all exhibitors, volunteers and attendees”.

The Elmore field days’ committee said in a statement that it “left the decision to cancel the event as late as possible with the hope that the COVID-19 situation might have eased, but due to the government restrictions, uncertainty around running events and the current outbreaks the decision was clear.

“The Elmore field days attracts exhibitors and public from all over Australia and overseas and due to the current interstate and international border restrictions it would not be guaranteed that we could include our usual patrons.”

Elmore’s decision follows that of the Henty field days, which was cancelled last month.

“While it is disappointing we can’t run this year, there are two major risks we can’t take as a community,” Elmore field days president Derek Shotton said.

“One is the ramifications it would have on the community if the field days goes broke if we committed to run – costing a massive amount of money – then were forced to cancel at the last minute.

“The second is that if we ran and it caused an outbreak in our community.”

The Elmore field days has been running annually since 1964 and this year was meant to be the 57th event.

The field days has only ever missed one day of the event because of a flood in 1975 causing the last day to be cancelled.

“We hope that everyone continues to stay safe and well. We plan to be back bigger and better on 5th, 6th & 7th October 2021,” Mr Shotton said.

AgQuip, which was due to be held in Gunnedah next month, is the only field days to have rescheduled.

The decision to move the event to November during harvest has drawn criticism from exhibitors.