No Gunnedah Christmas Festival in 2025

Spiraling costs and immense volunteer hours have forced the indefinite cancellation of the Gunnedah Christmas Festival.

The Conadilly Street event has run over many years in different formats in the lead up to Christmas. But with rising expenses and resources scarce, last year’s organisers – Gunnedah Chamber of Commerce – have decided to invest their efforts into a shop-local Christmas campaign instead.

“It was a unanimous board decision,” chamber president CJ Baldry Adams said.

“The amount of money, time and effort and work that goes into that, we would rather put into a shop local campaign.”

The chamber president said preparation and financial costs involved in the Christmas Festival were upwards of $25,000.

She said much more value could be gained a from a 6-8 week shop local campaign throughout November and December, rather than one, standalone, four-hour community fair.

“We were running the event on the back of a lot of volunteer hours and in-kind contributions from business which was dwindling,” she said.

Last year’s festival hosted by the chamber of commerce was postponed and ultimately cancelled due to a severe weather forecast.

The chamber ran the festival year prior in 2023 but there was mixed feedback from those involved.

“The time they put into it and what they thought they were getting back, wasn’t happening,” Ms Baldry Adams said.

Gunnedah Shire Council hosted in 2022 but council confirmed it was not considering such an event in 2025.

Several years before that were a write-off for the festival due to the COVID pandemic.

Additionally, the chamber also encountered difficulty finding a suitable time to host the festival during a busy event calendar at that time of year.

Established events like Gunnedah’s MS Christmas Fair, Carols in the Park and the countless private functions and work Christmas parties were also competing for the same time on the same weekends.

“We were rescheduling, postponing and we found there were so many other events celebrating Christmas in the community, so it was hard to slot into the calendar,” Ms Baldry Adams said.

The chamber said by not running the Christmas festival would allow members to focus on other equally important local events like its planned retail campaign.

“It gave us an opportunity to review the calendar and see what else we can do,” she said.

The chamber planned to launch the shop local campaign with a focus not only on Gunnedah but the shire’s villages and surrounding district as well.

To assist the organisation planned to develop a Christmas shopping directory “so people understand what’s available and keep the money in our town, in the district and our region”, Ms Baldry Adams said.

Also on the cards are campaigns and competitions to shop local as well – encouraging people to browse the Gunnedah’s district ‘bricks and mortar’ stores and online local shopfronts as well.

Ms Baldry Adams said this campaign will promote money staying in the region, supporting the Gunnedah district’s retail sector and other industries that will benefit from the flow on effect of local investment at the time of year.

Although the Christmas Festival will not be held this year, the chamber of commerce was open to discussions about working with existing community organisations to host a combined Christmas event in the future.