The DREAM (Dubbo Regional Entertainment Arts and Music) Festival started in 2010. But now the volunteers who run the event have handed over the reigns to Dubbo Regional Council.

In a submission at the recent council meeting, chair Anne Field said the event had surpassed the volunteers' abilities.

"The festival is clearly popular with the local community and has demonstrated the achievement of many social, cultural and economic goals," Ms Field said.

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"However, this difficult decision has come around due to the limited capacity of the volunteer committee and difficulty managing such a large festival.

"In the past two years or so the festival's growth has had to be curtailed to ensure the events could be delivered by the small committee and despite succession planning we are no longer in position to deliver a festival of this size."

In the last three years, the DREAM Festival committee estimates there have been 20,000 people or more attend the event each year.

Of those, about 5000 are expected to have been from outside Dubbo.

Ms Field said conservatively, it's estimated the festival brings about $600,000 to the Dubbo economy each year.

Cr Shields said the volunteer committee, both the current and former members, had done an "absolutely incredible" job of running the event.

"I'm the first to admit I was highly sceptical of the DREAM Festival when it first came along but the figures backed up exactly what they were saying. They bought in a lot of cash for the Dubbo area when it came to visitation, when it came to economic activity, he said.

"It really worked for Dubbo."

Council has already decided not to run the DREAM Festival this year. The $40,000 allocated for the event will go towards other cultural activities.

"It is a shame, I see it as being put on hold this year. It is a shame that this has happened," the mayor said.

"I'm really hoping this goes on further and gets bigger and bigger as the years go ahead, once we get over this awful pandemic and this awful economic problem we're in. I'm hoping that the DREAM Festival does continue to live on and it will go and get even bigger and better next year."

At Monday night's council meeting it was decided the regional events branch of council would 'establish a transition plan with the DREAM volunteer committee to support the delivery of a DREAM Festival/large cultural event in 2021'.