Sunday, July 12, 2020

Sydney Quilt Show 2020 cancelled

Message from the QuiltNSW Committee, 12 July 2020




The Committee has carefully considered the Sydney Quilt Show 2020 in light of the COVID-19 pandemic and has decided not to go ahead with it. This does not mean that the Sydney Craft and Quilt Fair is also cancelled. At this stage, Expertise Events is still planning to hold the Fair from 29 October – 1 November 2020.

There are many reasons for our decision.

Firstly, BERNINA Australia, the principal sponsor of the Best of Australia Award has recently announced there will be no Best of Australia award for 2020. The quilts judged as Best of Show in each state and territory during 2019 will be held over until 2021. There will be no BERNINA Best of Show winners during 2020. This is a significant change to the nature of the competition we offered member entrants back in March.

The COVID-19 pandemic has resulted in many other changes and considerable uncertainty still remains. The Committee did not want to commit member funds and considerable time by members to planning and preparing for the 2020 Show that could not be guaranteed to go ahead. We considered it prudent to cancel now before further funds and volunteer resources were committed.

Most importantly, the Committee is concerned for the health and wellbeing of members during the preparation, installation, and management of our Show. We considered how we could undertake this safely, and we came to the conclusion that it would not be reasonable nor responsible to ask our members to volunteer their time.

The ramifications of this decision are as follows:

The raffle will not go ahead this year but instead be held at the Sydney Quilt Show 2021 and all subsequent raffle quilts will be held a year later than planned.

We will contact Sydney Quilt Show 2020 entrants soon regarding the return of their entry fees.

Whilst you, like the Committee, are no doubt disappointed that the Sydney Quilt Show will not take place in 2020, we hope you understand the difficult decision we have had to make.

We know that there will be a time when we can return safely to the events and activities that we love as quilters. We are already making plans for what we hope will be an exciting 2021!

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