Brett Gleeson thought having 100 days to organise a Maitland Show was cutting it fine.
Subscribe now for unlimited access.
$0/
(min cost $0)
or signup to continue reading
But when the NSW Government unexpectedly announced it was easing COVID-19 restrictions, paving the way for a Maitland Show to go ahead in February, he found himself with a ridiculously smaller timeframe to pull everything together.
Should the show be cancelled? Should part of the show go ahead? Should the show be postponed to another date?
These were only a few of the questions running through his mind, and when he met with the Maitland Show committee to hatch a plan, concerns over COVID-19 - and its possible spread at the event - were a prominent topic.
"Thirty shows had already cancelled. Two had postponed. We had a very short timeframe between the government telling us we could have a show, and the show date, and once you cancel you can't come back from that," Mr Gleeson said.
"Thirty shows had already cancelled. Two had postponed. We had a very short timeframe between the government telling us we could have a show, and the show date, and once you cancel you can't come back from that,"
- Maitland Showground manager Brett Gleeson
"We were also in a situation where we rely on the committee and volunteers to help run the show, and a lot of them are elderly and were concerned about being involved and mixing with the crowd due to the risk of COVID-19, which is completely understandable.
"Then there were the restrictions that capped the crowd at 5000 people at any one time, and the need for us to be able to hold the show to make money. There were a lot of factors that had to be considered."
In the end it came down to a compromise, and that was to hold some of the competitions as a closed event and allow the Showmen's Guild to run the sideshow alley as a separate event for the community the following weekend.
It was a kick in the guts after months, and months, of preparation to transform Maitland Show into the best agricultural show around and bring back the old world charm people love.
There were big plans for the February show, including celebrations to mark its 160th anniversary, and for now they have been put aside.
Another show date is expected to be set in stone during a zone committee meeting in a few weeks. August is being touted as the preferred month.
If an August date is secured Mr Gleeson will have 4.5 months to pull off a Maitland Show, and then another 4.5 months - minus the Christmas and New Year period - to organise a February 2022 show.
Fitting in with the Showmen's Guild's schedule will be a priority, and August could prove workable with other show dates.
"The week after the Ekka (a Queensland show) the guild makes its way back into NSW for shows in Tamworth, Quirindi and Singleton before heading south," Mr Gleeson said.
When asked how 4.5 months would compare to his 100 day Maitland Show, he chuckled.
"Well it's going to be a huge workload, and it will be pretty full on. It will be very similar to what I went through when I got here, although the difference this time is that I have 15 months of experience under my belt," he said.
"We have to think about our resources, we do this with volunteers and we can't burn them out. Our show committee will have a meeting on March 23 to map out what sort of event we can pull off later this year.
"Either way we will need more volunteers, we have an ageing volunteer force and we are going to need more people to come in and help us."
What would an August Maitland Show look like under COVID-19 guidelines?
The cap on the number of people at a showground event has been removed and now the only rule that applies is one person per two square metres.
"If there is no community transmission, no outbreaks and a vaccination program happening we think it will be as close to normal as what we would normally have," he said.
"Under the two square metre rule we can have 90,000 people at the showground at once, so numbers aren't an issue anymore."
Mr Gleeson - a former Newcastle Show general manager, president and board member - took the job as Maitland Showground manager in late 2019.
He came with a strong love for local shows, and that has only blossomed after experiencing the community feel, and agricultural focus, at Maitland Show.
"I had a lot of ideas that I wanted to incorporate into the 2020 show, but there's only so much you can do in 100 days, so I was focusing on making it happen for this year's show," he said.
Mr Gleeson is even considering holding two Maitland Shows every year. He isn't sure what that would look like, but he is throwing ideas around and says it looks promising from a financial point of view, and it would bring the community - and schools - together under a farming focus.
In the news:
Do you know you can subscribe to get full access to all Maitland Mercury stories? Subscribing supports us in our local news coverage. To subscribe, click here.