"We had to cancel, we weren't going to be able to put on anything up to the standard that we like," Mrs Lee said.

"The new Victorian government public event framework rules for events are very complex and difficult. Given the popularity of the summer night markets we would have had to fence the whole area, count people in/out, record every person either via QR code or paper list and that's just the tip of the iceberg of it.

"We felt we would be operating an event that was not up to our usual standard - we love the meandering and happy atmosphere that happens at the markets for friends and families.

The heartbreaking decision came after the organisers were working hard behind the scenes to tick all the boxes with regard to coronavirus restrictions.

"We know there's other markets going on but if we were to cap the event at 1000 people to coincide with the first level of the new framework, we found that was going to be hard and to have the next level up would have been impossible," Mrs Lee said.

"We could have lowered the usual market to a general market with food but we didn't want to do that because we love the whole kit and caboodle we normally have.

"It's so sad and a really tough decision after we'd been working closely with council and had everything booked in with stallholders, but we just couldn't make it happen."

Mrs Lee said they had received positive feedback from the market community despite the cancellation and all of the stallholders booked in for 2021 were looking forward to the 2022 series.

The cancellation comes a few weeks after Mrs Lee and Mrs Brown pulled off a successful three-week Christmas market series at Warrnambool's Civic Green.

"The Christmas market is different because it's aimed at locals where they go shop and leave, not mill around like at the summer night markets," Mrs Lee said.

"There were lots of stallholders with lots of different things and everyone enjoyed themselves. There was a really nice crowd who were all very conscious of social distancing."

Already looking ahead to the 2022 summer night market experience, Mrs Lee said coronavirus regulations would change the face of the series for the forseeable future.

"We will definitely have a different layout next time," she said. "COVID has taught us that close contact is not the smartest thing and looking back on photos, it now seems so crowded.

"We will bring back the youth stage next year as its a great opportunity for young people.

"I have no doubt we'll be back bigger and better in the summer of 2022."

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