Music fans will have to wait until later in the year to attend the annual Barunga Festival, as efforts to slow the spread of coronavirus begin to cause widespread disruptions.
Subscribe now for unlimited access.
$0/
(min cost $0)
or signup to continue reading
Events are being cancelled across Katherine after the government banned large gatherings of people this week.
The annual Barunga Festival, which draws upwards of 4000 people from across the country, has officially been rescheduled today.
"Celebrations that traditionally draw thousands of visitors to the Katherine region in the dry season will instead encourage them to visit in September," a spokesman from organisers Skinnyfish Music and Katherine Regional Arts said.
The three-day music, sports and culture festival was due to run from June 5 to 7, but will now be held from September 11 to 13.
"We hope that postponing the festival continues to keep our remote communities safe, while still providing an opportunity for everyone to come together once everything is more controlled," the spokesman said.
Anzac Day events, the anniversary of the bombing of Katherine and multiple sporting events have all been cancelled to reduce the spread of the highly contagious virus.
The Katherine Junk Festival has been postponed to September as well.
Katherine's largest event of the year, the Katherine Show is also up in the air due to the coronavirus pandemic, with organisers waiting on advice from the NT Government.
"The committee is monitoring directives from the NT Government and Department of Health," Katherine Show Officer Annemarie Skerrett said.
"Our event is not until July, and as of yet there has been no direction on what to do with events a couple of months in the future,"
"We are waiting to see if the V8 Supercar event in Darwin is going to be cancelled, so for this week we are continuing to organise the show."
The postponements and cancellations of Katherine's largest events come after Prime Minister Scott Morrison announced a ban of non-essential mass gatherings of more than 500 people from Monday this week.
New advice continues to be released from the government.
But some events set to take place later in the year are holding their breaths to see if the pandemic blows over soon.
President of the Katherine Turf Club Paul Mullins said it is "business as usual" for the Katherine Races, one of the town's most popular events on the social calandar.
"We are on standby as this pandemic evolves, but at the moment we are preparing to have a race," he said.
The Katherine Races is set to go ahead on August 15, almost five months away, with more than 3000 people expected to attend the event.
"We will have more information in the next 48 hours as the government continues to reassess its advice, but we currently have plans to continue with our working-bee on Saturday to get the race track ready."
More reading:
We have removed our paywall from our stories about the coronavirus. This is a rapidly changing situation and we want to make sure our readers are as informed as possible. If you would like to support our journalists you can subscribe here.
