Clunes Booktown Festival was set to return on the first weekend of May (2 & 3) with a series of renowned authors and guest speakers joining the historic country town in north-west Victoria for a festival of the book filled with ideas and arts.
Along with author talks and panel discussions, the festival was set to host discoveries of the largest collection of rare, out-of-print and collectible books in Australia, live music, local food and wine, and street performers.
The festival has now been cancelled due to the current health crisis.
A statement from the Clunes Booktown Festival Committee:
It is with deep regret that we’ve made the very sad decision to cancel the Clunes Booktown Festival for May 2020, in light of the developing situation with COVID-19.
Like most events of this nature, we start advertising and marketing the event, designing and printing collateral, booking acts and accommodation, along with hiring equipment and venues many months in advance, and each day that passes those expenses mount up. It would be irresponsible for us to allow that spend to continue without the firm knowledge that the event would take place.
We are very disappointed to make this announcement but we have a duty of care to staff, volunteers, traders, authors, artists and of course the general public.
All pre-purchased Festival and author talk tickets and site payments from our many booksellers and food vendors will be refunded.
We will be working in the background to bring you the Clunes Booktown Festival once everything has settled and it is safe to do so.
Stay tuned for what’s to come.
