Wellington could play host to an all new New Year's Eve event if a proposal addressed by Dubbo Regional councillors during the January extraordinary meeting goes ahead.
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Mayor Ben Shields put forward the idea after receiving 'a lot' of expressions of interest from Wellington residents interested in hosting an event similar to the Dubbo end of year celebration.
Mr Shields said in a mayoral minute the calls came 'on the back of the highly successful Dubbo Show Society New Year's Eve Firework Display'.
"It's my view that community events like New Year's Eve add to the positive social fabric of a community. It assists in community good will, helps lift the profile of the town as well as helping the areas economy," Cr Shields said.
While the proposal is still a long way off and lacked concrete details, Cr Shields said he believed council should support a 'community driven' event by sponsoring the use of a showground for the proposed event.
Wellington Show Society president Rob Dimmick, who's overseen the annual event in it's current form for the past few years, says it's still early days on a potential new event, but that community events were always of interest to them.
"I think, as a show society, we're all about the community; all events that work for the community and bring the community together are important," Mr Dimmick said.
"As I understand it, Dubbo Show Society put on a ticketed event this year, I'm not sure what they've done in the past, whether it's been ticketed or not, I'm not sure whether people have to pay to go to or it's something free that's put on for the community."
"At the moment, we don't know enough about how it'll work at this stage, but obviously, if council are looking to do things that benefit the community; that's always good."
While the Wellington Show Society has weathered the storm of COVID-19 well, Mr Dimmick said there were still challenges ahead.
"We were really grateful to receive grant funding last year, that helped cover any of the losses we would have had due to missing out on events last year," Mr Dimmick said.
"At present, we're expecting to have the show back this year at the usual time, it's just a question of arranging all the manpower and work to be done around checking people coming in with regards to regulations."
"We want to make sure it's COVID safe."
Among the recommendations made by Cr Shields, council will be calling for expressions of interests from community groups around idea for the New Year's Eve event and aiming for a report on the submissions to be presented to council in May.