Jan McKenna said Corowa Show still represents great value with a family of four only costing $14 entry for a day out.
Corowa Show has been struggling with low attendance in recent years, with less people coming through the gates and less entries into the public competitions every year, and secretary Jan McKenna said it’s time for some new ideas and to try something different.
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She said it’s getting harder to attract the middle age groups, which is where attendance starts to fall away, and rides and attractions pulling out at the last minute don’t help.
“We've come to realise we cater for kids up to 10, and after that they lose interest,” Jan said.
“Once you lose those kids, you lose the parents as well; how you get them back, I don't know.
“If they're looking for the excitement of rides they go to Wangaratta on Friday and Saturday.
“They spend all their money there, then there’s none left to come here.”
Jan McKenna is once again calling for new ideas and fresh faces onto the show committee to keep the Corowa Show alive.
Photo by
Ian Johnson
Agricultural shows and field days bring rural communities together to showcase Australia's regional and farming culture.
They play a crucial role in supporting on-farm innovation and efficiencies in agricultural industries.
The first agricultural societies were formed in Hobart and Sydney in 1822, with Australia’s first show or exhibition staged at Parramatta the following year by the Agricultural Society of New South Wales.
Coinciding with a regular market, it awarded prizes for the best Merino sheep, colonial-bred horses and cattle, and servants of ‘good conduct and faithful service’.
The Campbell Town Show in Tasmania was established in 1838 and remains the oldest continually running event of its kind in the Southern Hemisphere.
By the time of Federation in 1901, around 1,000 seasonal agricultural shows were running annually across the nation.
The first Corowa Show was held on February 2, 1878, hosted by the Corowa Pastoral, Agricultural and Horticultural Society.
During its long history, the society has held annual shows except during World War II, with venues on several sites in Corowa until moving to its current site at the Corowa racecourse in 1958.
Jan said a recent trend of carnival rides and show attractions, such as the animal nursery this year, pulling out with little notice hurt the show and deprived locals of the very things they go to enjoy.
“The loss of the animal nursery this year hurt because that’s what the kids go to see,” she said.
“They’re a must at every show because the little kids adore them.
“So we put together the billy cart building exhibition, but that was a fizzer because it was last minute.
“If we’d known earlier and been able to advertise it, we could have had a great new exhibit.”
Jan said the show committee needs new and fresh ideas to keep people coming through the gates and get people from the middle age brackets to come back.
She suggested building on the billy cart exhibition and tying it into the town’s National Billy Cart Championships could be a way to create a fresh new drawcard for the show.
She said there was potential for the committee to hold a public meeting early in 2027 to hear feedback from the community about what they would like to see at the show and gather new ideas to progress the show forward.
Rutherglen Agricultural Society president and secretary Greg and Kay Lumby say community buy-in and fresh faces on the committee have revived the Rutherglen Show in recent years.
Photo by
Ian Johnson
Across the river at Rutherglen, Greg Lumby has been president of the Rutherglen Agricultural Society for 16 years.
He said the Rutherglen Show, now in its 136th year, faced a crossroads around the time of Covid and a one-off state government grant to support rural events post-Covid along with a refreshed committee proved to be a turning point.
“New blood brings new ideas,” Greg said.
“We put that to the community after Covid and said, ‘Do you really want a show or not?’, because it was crunch time and we needed new blood on the committee.
“We picked up some new members that year, and it's grown since; we've picked up more young committee members, who have been fantastic.
“The key now is those young ones who want to see the show progress.”
Unique show events like the dog jumping competition keep the Rutherglen Show fresh and bring people through the gates.
After Covid, the Victorian State Government introduced several major funding initiatives and stimulus packages specifically targeted at revitalizing regional tourism and events.
The Rutherglen Agricultural Society was approved for a grant that allowed them to provide free entry to the show, which enticed many locals to go and drove their gate numbers back up.
Greg said following the success of that first show after Covid, the committee decided to seek sponsorship from the community and local businesses so they could keep the event free.
“There were a lot of sponsors, families and people who were keen to kick in a few bob for us to keep entry free so it’s more accessible for families,” he said.
“The buy-in from the community and from businesses in town has been terrific.”
He said the community involvement to keep entry free and continually put new ideas forward had revived the show and as a result its future looked bright.
Today, more than 580 agricultural shows are held each year across the country according to Agricultural Shows Australia, attracting over six million visitors and contributing more than $965M to the economy.
