“A brilliant community event” was how Bairnsdale Agricultural Society Show president, Jack Peterson, described Saturday’s well-supported Show at the Bairnsdale Racing Club.

Families flocked in droves to the racecourse with early indications pointing to around 7500 people heading through the gates.

“I heard some reports we had more than we’ve had in 30 years, the most we’ve had here at the race course,” he said.

“We utilised the whole grounds this time – we had the motor and muster expo off to the corner paddock which was a great success.

“It has steadily grown over the past couple of years, we had good numbers through, so pretty good.”

Mr Peterson said a feature of the crowd, which was entertained by a number of community-based events, was the amount of families attending.

“We’ve changed basically what a lot of shows have been trying to do by charging people more and having more entertainment and we’re trying to incorporate more family-based free activities,” he said.

“Tim Bull was there for the pieeating comp, dunny race was good – the Federation Training kids won it – and they’ll all be back next year and we’ll be incorporating a bit of community involvement, maybe having a few water balloons and a few things that they have to pick up and put inside the dunny. We’re going to change it a bit next year rather than just a straight down the guts race.

“The community that was there, they were getting involved in it, it was great to see them right up against the fence.”

Mr Peterson planning was already underway for the 2019 version, saying the show committee was already gathering feedback and looking to put in place a bigger and better show next year.

“It was a bit quieter than what we would’ve hoped in the evening, but a bit of poor planning in that sense. The fireworks was a bit of a mishap – we’d organised for later fireworks and our fireworks provider had submitted a permit for it to be at 9pm, so the latest we could push it was to 9.30pm,” he said.

“The night element is probably going to be scrapped next year, but what we’re going to do is incorporate a three-day show, depending on what the society wants to do, but we’re looking at a Friday night carnival, Saturday show and Sunday show as well.

“We’ve learned a lot of lessons from this year and we’re going to put it out to the public for feedback, because in reality we’re all volunteers but none of us have experience in event management, we’re basically going be how we think it should be.

“Feedback is important, constructive criticism is our most valuable thing. But I’ve got to say we’ve had a lot of people contact us, propping us up saying what a fantastic show it was.”

Mr Peterson said the show committee is on the search for more volunteers to ensure a smooth event in 2019.

PICTURED: Doing the dunny dash! A new event at the Bairnsdale Agricultural Society Show, the Bush Dunny Dash pitted teams in a race carrying handmade portable ‘dunnies’ down the straight at Bairnsdale Racing Club, with the Federation Training students crossing the line first, ahead of the staff (pictured) in Brad Downey, Tracey Waddell, Ian Short, Alan Solomon and Terri Crowe.