Organisers are hoping to breathe new life into this year’s Warrnambool Agricultural Show with planning under way to give the annual event a new look.
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There has also been an injection of young blood into the show with 22-year-old Rachel Alexander being elected last week as the committee’s new president.
“We want to rebrand the show and give it a different feel,” Ms Alexander said.
Decisions on whether the 165th annual show will be cut back to just two days and if the sideshow alley will disappear from this year’s format will be made in coming months.
At last Wednesday’s annual general meeting there was a reshuffle of the show’s executive committee and new people appointed as president, vice-president and junior vice-president.
About 12 committee members spent most of Sunday planning for the future of the show.
“We’re really just sitting down and looking a lot more in detail about where we’re going over the next couple of years,” Ms Alexander said.
“Who we really want to target as our patrons and how we’re going to go about that, what are our goals and what are our priorities?
“What is it that the community wants and how can we better ensure that what we offer them is what they want?”
Last year it was reported that the sideshow alley may disappear from this year’s show, but Ms Alexander said there had been no decision made. “It probably won’t be decided for another couple of months,” she said.
“It was very disappointing at the end of last year’s show because the weather really impacted the rides, so a lot of people came in on Sunday and weren’t able to have that experience.”
“We want to make sure that if we do have the rides, how do we minimise the risk of that happening again?”
However, it was hoped the committee would make a decision next month on whether the show would be scaled back to just two days – and if it was, whether it was held Friday/Saturday or Saturday/Sunday. “We’re all really positive about this year’s show,” she said.
“It’s definitely going ahead. We don’t know what it will look like yet but it will be different to last year’s.
“We’ve got five new committee members and we have a couple more who look like they’re coming on board.”
Ms Alexander, who joined four years ago when she was 18, is the youngest person on the committee.
She has been showing prize-winning beef cattle at shows across the district and in Melbourne, Geelong and Adelaide since she was 14 and was last year a finalist in the young ambassador awards held at the Royal Melbourne Show.