The community has buoyed Dubbo WestView Drive-In in the wake of it being forced to postpone its sellout and long-planned event because of new coronavirus measures.
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Support from ticket holders, sponsors, contractors and suppliers had "blown away" the operator in the 48 hours after the decision was made its Outback Thunder Running on Empty screening would not proceed on Saturday, a spokesman said.
The event was expected to draw 900 people to the only open-air cinema in western NSW, but the stricter national response to COVID-19, including a ban on non-essential indoor gatherings of more than 100 people and advocacy of distancing, forced a change in plans.
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The postponement notice was accompanied by advice to ticket holders that in the days ahead they would be offered a full refund or given the option to hold on to their tickets for when a future date was announced.
The drive-in spokesman told the Daily Liberal on Sunday thousands of dollars and countless hours had been invested in the event and that it was a tough situation to work out how to recover from it.
He took to social media late on Wednesday to tell of "sunshine after a storm".
So far there had only been about five people requesting a refund and a solid commitment to attending the rescheduled event later in the year, he said in a post to Facebook.
"It has warmed my heart reading emails and comments from ticket holders wishing us well, wanting to donate money or pay it forward, asking how they can help and simply offering their support and condolences," he said.
"I love living in the bush and am proud to call Dubbo my home and if anything much of what I have witnessed, except in the supermarket, makes me proud to be a bushy and a rusted on Australian. We are so very lucky in many respects that we are a tiny business that doesn't depend on our events as our primary source of income. Everyone who is involved in the WestView is there because we love it...
"We are surrounded by such wonderful people and to date I haven't seen anyone come into our drive-in who hasn't had a smile right across their face and that to me is the most important currency."
A number of events have been postponed or cancelled in the past week.
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