Weddings and events industry workers are over the moon as caps ease and plans get the go ahead.
Subscribe now for unlimited access.
$0/
(min cost $0)
or signup to continue reading
Many couples have had to postpone their weddings for almost two years, and according to Director of Hunter Events Group, Louise Manning, are now very optimistic about finally tying the knot.
"We've moved 39 weddings and events into next year, and have half a dozen or so weddings left for the back end of this year," she said.
"It's those couples who are beyond ecstatic that their weddings are looking much more promising over the course of the next couple of months."
In other news:
Maitland and the Hunter's tourism sector is set to boom as guests and attendees flock to the region for weddings, festivals and expos.
Ms Manning said she has a sneaking suspicion that we will see a massive increase in mid-week tourism as a lot of weddings have been moved to weekdays to accommodate for the backlog.
"So many weddings have had to move to weekdays next year to accommodate availability of vendors, so I 100 per cent think we're going to have a lot of mid-week weddings where people are going to have to travel to our region."
According to Ms Manning, the well being of the events industry depends on the local community getting out and showing their support.
"Without the support of the local community, an industry that has been so significantly impacted over the course of almost two years can't recover."
"If people are vaccinated and feeling safe to get out there, support these events and get back out in the community.
"So many events are operated with hundreds of small businesses who have all been hit so hard with the inability to get out and in front of people, so it's really important we get as many people at these events as we can so all these businesses can see some light at the end of the tunnel."
Ms Manning said most local vendors who go into making events happen are tiny local family businesses.
"They're lots of mum and dad businesses and micro businesses, not big corporate organisations by any means, so it's really important they get the support they need to recover from what has been a pretty shocking couple of years."
Ms Manning said her team and vendors are extremely happy to be able to go ahead and plan for the future, although a lot of events scheduled for the back end of this year have already been moved to next year.
"It's amazing, it's so good to be back getting into events and putting lots of plans in place for what is to come, next year is looking very promising."
Currently the events industry has to abide by density limits of one person per 4sqm indoors and one person per 2sqm indoors, but caps on attendees have been removed for fully vaccinated people.
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.