Allan Murnane, who is now based in Queensland, said last year he offered his consultant services to council for free to help get the festival back on track and also offered to buy the management rights to the event.

Mr Murnane was at Warrnambool City Council from 1998 till about 2005 and was the major events manager and festival director.

In what would have been the festival’s 20^th year, Mr Murnane said it had been established as an economic development tool.

He said in the early years the event was budgeted for around $700,000 and lost between $100,000 to $130,000.

“I offered to come down last year for a free consultation to help put this event back on track,” he said.

“I’m just mystified.”

Mr Murnane said he’d worked with local government in Australia, New Zealand and the US and all were trying to make their economies strong.

“Is their role for roads and rubbish or are they trying to make their economy strong?” he asked.

“It’s very difficult to create events. There’s probably 20 or 30 well known events around Australia.”

Mr Murnane said Fun4Kids had already achieved something extremely difficult by getting visitors to come to Warrnambool in winter.

“You’re getting people to come to Warrnambool in the middle of winter and you’re getting them to go into a tent,” he said. “You’ve already done the hard yards.

“They should do everything absolutely possible to retain it. To me they’re incompetent in their negligence to the community.

“I just wish the council said we’re in trouble. It’s not just me, hundreds of people have worked and had a history with it and have as much invested as me.

“Whoop de doo, they’re coming up with a new strategy. You can’t tell me the new strategy won’t say to create something iconic.”

Mr Murnane said by ceasing the festival the city would lose a 20 year investment.

“You’re never going to get it back,” he said.

He said if $5 million was spent in Warrnambool as a result of the festival then about $100 million had been brought to the local economy over 20 years.

“If the economic unit doesn’t help to create economic stimulus... cancel the unit,” he said.

“Running small events across the year will not pull people from outside the region.

“I don’t think they know what they’ve got.”

Warrnambool City Council’s city growth director Andrew Paton said Mr Murnane approached council with a commercial offer which did not address to council’s satisfaction the financial concerns about the running of the event. 

“The proposal would not have provided for the reallocation of resources to implement an events strategy aimed at positioning Warrnambool as a year-round destination with a spread of events across 12 months,” he said.