Preparations are underway for the annual Royal Canberra Show, which will take place this weekend, but certain festival favourites will be missing as the show's organisers still deal with the financial fallout of COVID.
Royal National Capital Agricultural Society CEO Geoff Cannock said preparations are on track for welcoming the estimated 90,000 people who will attend the show over the three days at EPIC.
"The weather has been very kind to us. The temperature today is ideal for setting up. People have been exhausted from the very hot weather," Mr Cannock said.
"We've got our horse show running now, so the the arena is full of horses. All the showman are here, the people from Sideshow Alley, they've come from Gundagai and Maitland shows to this show."
The Canberra Show returned last year after being cancelled due to COVID, but the financial impacts of the pandemic are still evident.
"The difficulty has been financial as a result of COVID, but also not being able to afford experienced staff, it's put a lot of pressure on us," Mr Cannock said.
"We used to have eight or nine full-time staff, we've now got just three. So that's been difficult.
"But nevertheless, the three that are here, they're super people that work long hours, and we're making a difference to people's lives, to the extent that we can now see the smiles on the faces of the happy exhibitors that have arrived."
Show favourites like woodchopping, yard dog displays and sheep competitions will all be missing from this year's Canberra Show.
The woodchopping competition will not take place during the three days of the show, after the Victorian government stopped the logging of native forests and NSW forests are still recovering from bushfires.
"So now hardwood logs can only come from plantation timber, and those plantations haven't matured yet," Mr Cannock said.
"Cost is only a factor in that we would have to go to North Queensland to get timber, and it just doesn't make it worthwhile.
"We won't be the only show that doesn't have timber, but it's always been a traditional part of the show. We're really, really disappointed that we can't have it."
The yard dogs display is also not running this year due to the significant costs.
"It costs around $30,000 to run a yard dog competition. So unless you can get significant sponsorship, it's very hard to put on," Mr Cannock said.
The sheep competition is also cancelled this year, after no-one was available to run the sheep section, but will return in 2024.
"We didn't have enough volunteers to run the sheep section. We now have a volunteer from Yass who's going to run it in 2024 and we've got indications from exhibitors that they will be returning in 2024," Mr Cannock said.
"As we go on over the next three years, we'll build back to getting the sections that we lost over COVID."
The Canberra Show will however feature a new entertainment act this year in the form of the Horse Experience, which will demonstrate how horses can be trained for movies.
- The Canberra Show is on from February 24 to 26. See canberrashow.org.au/
