Rutherglen's Winery Walkabout rescheduled to July 24-25

Winemakers of Rutherglen (WOR) on Wednesday rescheduled the Queen's Birthday long-weekend festival to the weekend of July 24-25.

WOR executive officer Annalee Nolan said while it was a difficult decision, plans were already under way to welcome visitors back to Rutherglen next month.

"Whilst we are disappointed to again be facing challenges in hosting this event, the health and safety of our staff, patrons and wider Rutherglen community is our primary concern and responsibility," she said.

Ms Nolan said they had been expecting 12,000 patrons to Winery Walkabout over the Queen's Birthday long weekend.

"It was down on previous years but it was still quite a few people to be bringing into the region," she said.

"We'd be disappointed if we couldn't welcome our Melbourne visitors to the festival.

"We're hoping people will stick with us and support us through the date change.

"Whilst we are unable to secure another long weekend to host the event, we appreciate the ongoing support of our patrons in making plans to retain their tickets and hope they can join us in July.

"The program will be essentially the same excluding the dates."

IN OTHER NEWS

The walkabout weekend's country fair and celebrity grape stomp event held in Rutherglen's main street had already been cancelled due to the inability to control crowd numbers.

All festival ticket holders will receive communication within 24 hours, with all relevant ticketing options and information.

Meanwhile, the Dartmouth Cup fishing competition will be proceeding on the Queen's Birthday weekend without Melbourne-based participants as per a travel order from the Victorian government delivered yesterday.

The event was a COVID casualty last year, but Dartmouth Hotel owner Aaron Scales said the community was determined to see its return.

He estimated about 10 per cent of the competition's 350-plus competitors were from Melbourne.

"We are definitely going ahead," Mr Scales said.

"As soon as registrations opened it was just overwhelmed.

"Those who wanted to come just went bang."

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