It would have been the first Ballimore Auction to take place after a three-month break because of the pandemic, but then there was a change of plans.

"With the breakout in Victoria and then moving to NSW, a fair bit of angst was among not only staff members, and the people who run the canteen at Ballimore, everyone was a bit worried," organiser Angus Barlow said.

"Obviously the needed scrutiny for allowing people in and having to find extra staff to run all that it just looked to be all too difficult.

"We're disappointed we're not going ahead with it, but I just felt in the past two weeks, it's just really back in the spotlight now, COVID, and we didn't really want to add to any more dramas by having our auction and creating any more dramas for anyone else."

Mr Barlow said they would plan behind the scenes for next month and as it got closer, see what the state of play was.

The auction is a marketplace for birds, poultry, livestock, machinery, household goods and furniture, fodder and grain, among other items.

Mr Barlow said being the first event since March, it was likely it would have drawn a good turnout, which factored in the decision.

"[As well as Dubbo, it has] a pretty good following from Mudgee, Wellington, Parkes, Narromine, Trangie, Warren, Coonamble, Coonabarabran, so it's got a pretty wide radius of kilometres of where people come from," he said.