{"id":45695,"date":"2020-10-02T13:06:32","date_gmt":"2020-10-02T03:36:32","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/cms.fiveaa.com.au\/?p=45695"},"modified":"2020-10-02T13:06:36","modified_gmt":"2020-10-02T03:36:36","slug":"lobethal-lights-group-clarifies-exactly-what-is-happening-with-the-lights-this-year","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/cms.fiveaa.com.au\/news\/lobethal-lights-group-clarifies-exactly-what-is-happening-with-the-lights-this-year\/","title":{"rendered":"Lobethal Lights Group Clarifies Exactly What Is Happening With The Lights This Year"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Organisers of the beloved Lobethal lights have confirmed that locals will still be encouraged to put up Christmas lights this year despite the official festival being cancelled.<\/h3>\n\n\n\n
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This week the Lobethal Lights Group announced that it was with \u201cheavy hearts\u201d they had decided to cancel this year\u2019s event due to COVID. They later added they were encouraging \u201chomes and businesses to light up bigger than ever\u201d.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The committee\u2019s Marianne Foristal told FIVEAA Breakfast\u2019s David & Will on Friday:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cAs a committee we run the festival, which is the markets, the nativity scene, the food stalls and then the Christmas pageant. As a committee we looked at the COVID plan\u2026 we couldn\u2019t do it, it was just too hard as a small committee. It\u2019s a really hard call to make and caused us a lot of grief\u2026<\/p>

\u201cWe\u2019re not stopping residents putting lights up. It wasn\u2019t meant to be the whole event, as in lights in the town cancelled, it\u2019s more the fact of our festival, which is what we were putting on over the two weeks. If you could imagine trying to monitor a crowd every night for two weeks with COVID restrictions its really hard to do\u2026<\/p>

\u201cPeople are going to be putting up lights and people are going to come up, therefore we\u2019re going to have a lot of people here, so that\u2019s also a concern\u2026<\/p>

\u201cYou feel as if you\u2019re between a rock and a hard place\u2026 we\u2019re really saddened that the community is so upset about it\u2026 how are we supposed to announce this event?\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

LISTEN:<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n