Mark Blythe, Tarrangower Times

This Sunday will see another Maldon Swap Meet held at the Maldon Racecourse Reserve; the resurgence of events post COVID speaks volumes for the resilience and dedication of Maldon’s army of organisers and volunteers.

A lot of rural and regional towns are very busy trying to pick up the pieces of their event industries after the wilderness years of COVID, but Maldon has managed to keep all of their events ticking over during the last two years, in one form or another, even if they were just on life support.

Maldon event organisers ‘cut their coat according to their cloth’, running COVID safe events where they could, and adapting to comply with whatever COVID requirements were demanded on that day, or hour. They only cancelled advertised events as a last resort, due to blanket lockdowns or complete bans on public gatherings, and, many of those were snap bans by the government in response to the fluid COVID situation at the time.

2020 saw us run the February Antique Fair with the rumour of this virus in an obscure Chinese province, (but rest assured it will all be sorted in short order); five weeks later, all events everywhere nationwide were cancelled, and this lasted for 12 months. Then finally, we started to see some green shoots appear on the event scene, subject to some strict and very changeable conditions; it was a real ‘two steps forward, one step back’ situation. When we could run events, attendance was very heavily controlled; outdoor events were restricted to 1,000 per day, and indoor events? don’t even bother, also nothing that involved singing, dancing or even sitting at tables in groups.

Maldon lost two Folkies, I think, one Twilight Dinner, one Easter Fair went online. We lost three Swap Meets and one proposed Antique Fair in 2020, and one Antique Fair planned for October 2021.

Community groups like the Footy Club, Golf Club, and Machinery Museum, who rely on the revenue these events inject into the organisations, were terribly affected by all of this, BUT! They stuck it out; they still manned entrances and barbecues and sausage sizzles, they set up for events, and then they pulled them to bits at ridiculous times of the night, all for a fraction of the attendance (revenue) they had come to rely upon, but they still fronted up and put on a brave face on a bleak situation, so did all of my stall holders too for that matter.

I watched a 16 year old girl doing the gate in February 2021 stand up to an irate Antique Fair patron who was very unimpressed about having to QR code in, but he did it. The vast majority of the public, however, could not have been more obliging.

Twenty five years ago, Maldon had the Folkie, the Easter Fair and Terry n Tangles doing Clydesdale rides around town, and I think that was it. Maldon in Winter may have been around, but it would have been very early days. I would love to know if I’ve missed any that were, running, by the way. Compare that to now, three Swaps, One Antique Fair, the Town Wide Garage Sales, five or six Steam Packet concerts, the unstoppable Folkie, the Twilight Dinner, 12 Maldon Markets, and Maldon will have a whole suite of Gothic and Victorian era themed events being held for the first time this July.

We now have events based businesses set up here to compliment the local retail sector and the holiday accommodation market, businesses like mine ‘Maldon Events’ but also ‘Panacea Winery’, ‘Sandy Creek Clydesdales’ and the recently reinvented ‘Porcupine Village’. Most, if not all, of these operators are smart, keen and social media savvy. All are poised to make a huge impression in the 21st century.

So, what’s happened to enable all this to take place? It could not have happened in a vacuum. A huge change of attitude from the shire has gone a long way towards improving things; the last 10 years or so has seen the events section become a lot more supportive and encouraging than they once were, the shire has provided equipment an infrastructure to local groups like the machinery museum who in turn can provide bins etc. in return for a donation. Local event organisers all seem to cooperate with each other and look upon each other as collaborators rather than competitors; we cross-promote each other’s events and volunteer equipment and labour it stops needless doubling
up.

Shopkeepers are happy to put up flyers in their shops; now they have seen the benefits that events bring to Maldon first hand. Accommodation providers like Maldon Getaways are always promoting events either on social media or through the placement of flyers or posters. Finally, Maldon would not have 1,500 people in the town, and yet we can run all these events, bettering Castlemaine, so what is Maldon’s biggest asset? Maldonites! This comes back to me every time I ask a punter why they had such a great time here; they invariably say the friendliness of the locals. The locals they met at cafes, pubs, wine bars and shops and servos we are all doing Maldon proud.

This article appeared in the Tarrangower Times, 10 June 2022.