Shepparton Festival organisers have made the difficult decision to cancel the remaining festival events following growing concern at the coronavirus outbreak.
With the safety of the community in mind, general manager Louise Tremper said the decision was made following the government's advice to cancel events with more than 500 people in attendance.
“For me number one is the safety of the community, it's just part of our social responsibility,” she said.
“We do know what the experts are predicting - we as a community must adapt our behaviour in some way so we can contribute to flattening that curve that they’re expecting so that it doesn’t put so much pressure on our health services.”
Launched last Friday, the 24th annual Shepparton Festival was set to run until March 29 with more than 60 events scheduled to showcase more than 250 artists in 40 venues across the Goulburn Valley.
Despite a number of events being able to run over the weekend, organisers made the decision yesterday to cancel any remaining events on the schedule.
“It is a possibility that some things will be scheduled at a later date, I'm not sure people are ready to start thinking about the winter festival yet to be honest - people will have to follow us on social media to keep abreast of what is going on,” Ms Tremper said.
Festival organisers will be refunding all tickets sold, however attendees of events run by independent organisations have been encouraged to get in touch with those organisers and follow their refund policy.
Ms Tremper confirmed a small handful of partners may still continue with their events outside of the Shepparton Festival banner, and any exhibitions installed at the start of the festival would remain in place.
With close to a year's worth of planning going into the festival, organisers said it was a huge blow, not just to the event but the wider community.
Creative director Jamie Lea thanked all of the sponsors, supporters and volunteers who worked to pull the festival together.
“There's a lot of things ready to go, ready to be delivered and there is thousands of hours of effort, thousands of dollars of money and investment and the ripple on from that will be felt through accommodation, food, contractors, photographers, tech, security and many more,” she said.
“Without the collective contribution the festival doesn't happen . . . it's hundreds of people selflessly contributing to the cultural and creative goodness of the region.”
For more information visit www.sheppartonfestival.org.au
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