THE Riverland community will have to hold its breath a little longer as it awaits a decision on the future of this year’s Loxton Show later this month.
Loxton Agricultural and Horticultural Society President Bill Shannon said a meeting was scheduled for the middle of July to confirm the fate of the Loxton Show in October.
Until then, he said it is still undecided whether the festivities will go ahead, but the society would “love to put a show on”.
“(We’re) just waiting to see how things are progressing with government and health regulations,” Mr Shannon said.
“Really, we would love to put a show on, but there’s a lot of things to consider.
“There’s a lot of shows that are not going ahead right through to November now, so we’ll meet as a committee (in July) and by that stage, we’ll make our decision.”
Last week, the Federal Government announced it would spend $36 million to support agricultural show societies recover from the effects of COVID-19, particularly those who had been forced to cancel their events this year.
Mr Shannon said it’s gratifying to see Australian country shows can assess these grants, but until a firm decision is made on the Loxton Show, the society is uncertain whether it will apply for them.
“I think every show that’s been cancelled would be very encouraged to apply for this, and they’ll have guidelines from the big shows through to the small shows on how that’s going to be distributed,” he said.
“We’re still trying to get our head around how it all leads, but I think the grants are going to be given to shows that have cancelled because there’ll be costs involved for not having a show.
“I guess if our show is cancelled, we’d apply for that but since we haven’t made a decision we can’t at this stage.”