THE much-loved Barmera Christmas Pageant has been officially cancelled due to the COVID-19 pandemic and ongoing restrictions.
The annual event, which was set to take place on Friday, December 11, was cancelled by the committee last week.
Barmera Christmas Pageant co-ordinator Kelsey Hogan said although the decision to cancel was “disappointing” proceeding would be “too much of a risk”.
“We looked at the COVID rules on the government website and the pageant fell under the high-risk event category,” she said.
“If anything were to go wrong, we wouldn’t have enough funding to get us through so it’s better we give it a miss this year.”
Ms Hogan said the committee began planning the event in February.
“Planning the pageant is quite extensive and is something we start planning a month after our last pageant,” she said.
“In February we had set the date and booked in stallholders, and now we had to make the calls and tell everyone we had to unfortunately cancel the event.
“Everyone had been really understanding though and that’s really helped.”
Ms Hogan said cancelling the pageant could see a decline in tourism.
“We knew if we went ahead that we’d only get visitors statewide but people usually come from Victoria too,” she said.
“It’ll see tourism go down but hopefully it boosts back up again.”
Ms Hogan said although the Barmera Pageant is cancelled, the town will still spread Christmas spirit.
“Santa’s Cave will still go ahead and be set up in Bonney Theatre and we will again fill the empty shop windows across Barwell Avenue with Christmas decorations,” she said.
“We also hope to display a lights trail around town to get people up and about.”