AgQuip field days postponed due to COVID-19

13/07/21

Organisers of Australia's largest agricultural field days, AgQuip, have made the decision to postpone the event slated to take place next month.

AgQuip was one of countless events cancelled in 2019 due to the coronavirus pandemic but was scheduled to take place this year in Gunnedah, NSW, from August 17 to 19.

ACM Rural Events general manager Kate Nugent said they had made the ‘highly disappointing, very frustrating but absolutely necessary’ decision to postpone AgQuip due to increasing and ongoing concerns in relation to the impact of COVID-19.

“It's a surreal feeling with respect to knowing we were in this place last year but there is a difference,” Ms Nugent said.

“The fact remains that as we worked through the daily monitoring and the check-ins with NSW Health, our own risk assessment and risk analysis of the developing COVID-19 situation in Sydney - it just had so many implications with AgQuip only being five weeks away.”

Ms Nugent said the decision did not come easily, particularly with the agricultural economy running at a fast pace.

She said ultimately though, it came down to ‘health and safety in the rural and regional communities in which we serve’.

“Our first thought is always our exhibitors, our customers, without them you have no show,” Ms Nugent said.

“I've made the comment over the past day that AgQuip was a medium to high risk. We needed to make the call and that was regrettably the postponement of AgQuip 2021 to a new date.”

This is the second-time in AgQuip’s 49-year history that the call has been made not to proceed with the event in August.

For exhibitors who had applied, any monies paid can be fully refunded or held over to cover the rescheduled date.

Ms Nugent said they remain highly optimistic about the future of ag.

“We continue with the hope that we will be free from coronavirus restrictions, with a new date decision, and that way we can assure our stakeholders, exhibitors and visitors of a safe event,” she said.

“We appreciate we will now go into a process of consultation with our exhibitors to enable us to select a date to reschedule AgQuip 2021 and that will enable us to make a strong, decisive call for the benefit of all the stakeholders.”

For updates on when the event will take place, visit acmruralevents.com.au/agquip/home