One of the largest events on the Upper Lachlan Shire calendar, the Collector Village Pumpkin Festival has been cancelled indefinitely.
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Earlier this year the festival was cancelled due to COVID-19 restrictions and organisers said there was a big question for holding large events in 2021.
"Big events are just going to be problematic to run for the foreseeable future," president Gary Poile said.
A committee manages the festival for the Upper Lachlan Shire Council which means that the final decision to retire the event will be made at the next council meeting, September 17. However, Mr Poile said the current committee was finished.
"We're going to miss it a lot," Mr Poile said.
"We're definitely missing it already. We had some good times and made some great friends, it is a lot of hard work, but we have to face reality. It isn't like an old tractor that you can put it in the shed for a couple of years and expect it to work, the festival has become a living thing and it had to be worked on all the time."
Mr Poile and a group of unpaid volunteers completed the bulk of the work, including planning entertainment, managing social media accounts, organising competitions and logistics, as well as safety management for over 16,000 visitors.
"We were all volunteers, putting in lots of hours... There has been less people involved on the pointy end of it," Mr Poile said.
"It isn't just the COVID-19, we are victims of our own success. The festival got bigger and bigger and made Collector a great place."
Mr Poile who has been with the festival since its inception said it had been a great ride.
"It was so much fun. It's a lot of hard work but there is a lot of pleasure out of that," he said.
"You remember the good days when we had the beautiful sunshine, and just to stand there and see it all happening, after 12 months of planning to look up and see it all working was one of the biggest thrills.
"We had got to the point where there were families who had come to the festival as kids and were now bringing their kids, there was a buzz, you wish it could go on forever."
The committee hoped multiple, smaller events could now be held to attract people to Collector.
"The decision to retire the event will provide an opportunity for community and local businesses to run a wider variety of smaller events that will continue to attract visitors to the region," he said.
