Warren District Agricultural Show cancelled amid COVID concerns

The Lower South West has suffered another great loss for the region after it was announced last week the highly anticipated Warren District Agricultural Show would not go ahead because of COVID-19 concerns. The decision was announced on Wednesday after a short deliberation by the show’s committee where they weighed up the potential pros and cons of hosting a show so soon after the WA border reopened on February 5. Warren District Agricultural Show committee president Aimee Bendotti said the decision was made to postpone the March event because of the uncertainty surrounding the state of WA after the border reopens and to safeguard against the difficulties COVID-19 brings. “You don’t pay for the event the day before the show, like you have got to start putting deposits down now,” she said. “I do not think (Premier McGowan) will back down from his 5th of February opening so come the beginning of March what is to say there is not an outbreak or he extends the goal posts a bit more like saying all kids have got to be double-vaxxed, then we have to get more volunteers involved and it just gets out of control.” Ms Bendotti said the committee was not discounting the idea of hosting smaller-scale events throughout the year depending on how WA was handling any potential COVID-19 outbreaks. However, she said she wanted the 2022 show to reflect the hard work both the committee and the farmers do and the only true way to do that would be to postpone the full-sized show until next year. “We have been the last few years really building (the show) up and it might seem that we have just taken ‘oh we are just going to halt it’ but we just feel that with the restrictions that could potentially be there it would just sort of bring us back a bit from where we are pushing to be,” she said. The 2022 show would have been the 106th Warren District Agricultural Show.