The Victorian Sheep Show will close a chapter of Ballarat's history when it becomes the last ever event to be held at the historic Ballarat Showgrounds on Creswick Road.
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Hundreds of prized sheep will pack the main pavilion for one last time on Sunday June 23 in what event organiser Jacqueline Kalogerakis expects will be a "bittersweet" show.
"It's pretty exciting and we are obviously looking forward to setting up the new showgrounds with the new sheep show, but I've got a lot of nostalgia around the old showground and its history. The show has been running there for over 100 years now," she said.
After the Victorian Sheep Show the showgrounds will officially move to its new site at Mount Rowan which is under construction.
Ms Kalogerakis said entries for the 2024 Victorian Sheep Show were about the same as last year, despite not being able to run the alpaca show and sheep dog trials that normally accompany it.
"I'm really happy with the numbers this year considering normally we have alpaca show, sheep dog trials and trade fair but because we can't have all that it's definitely come back to just sheep so it's nice to see everyone coming along to support this show," she said.
"We have had to minimise our other events for this show because we haven't had access to the rest of the showgrounds."
There are entries from all over Victoria as sheep farmers come together to compete for a coveted blue ribbon and show off their prized sheep. This year's feature breed is the Suffolk.
Ms Kalogerakis said this week would see farmers putting in the last of the hard work needed to get sheep trained and ready to stand before the judges, with a final working bee also planned at the showgrounds to get the main pavilion ready.
A new athletics track and centre, which would have acted as a warm-up facility for the Commonwealth Games athletics at Mars Stadium, will be developed on the current showgrounds site and is planned for completion in 2026.
