But, like many events in Tasmania, the 147-year-old show was not immune to the coronavirus pandemic.

It's a possible blessing to have the hiatus following a couple of tumultuous years for the show society. The show was forced to move to a one-day event in 2018 due to dwindling patronage and rising costs. At the time, there were many conversations about how relevant the show is for today.

Given the show is now a one-day event, the next question is how relevant is a public show holiday on a Thursday?

Would a Friday be best so Northern Tasmanians can enjoy a long weekend - like their counterparts in the North-West and the South do for their show days. Another option is to petition to have the public holiday transferred to another part of the year.

This appears to be the preference of many and makes the most sense. Some businesses this year, and in the past, have worked the public holiday and given staff the Friday off anyway to avoid disruption to productivity and sickie calls from those looking for an extra-long weekend off.

And it was a move successfully done by Circular Head who chose to move their public holiday from its Burnie Show connections and transfer it to Agfest in May.

In the 1990s, Jeff Kennett as Premier removed the Victorian public holiday for the Royal Melbourne Show.

Since then two more public holidays have been added - Easter Sunday to allow for fair rates for employees working that day and pre-AFL grand final.

This year the latter was renamed Thank You day to be held on October 23.

The Tasmanian government has been reviewing public holidays for a while without much action and perhaps this was a missed opportunity to rename show days for 2020 in an effort to highlight the efforts and sacrifices of so many in our community.

There is a plan to review the Flinders Island Show date and public holiday, it's also now time the government moved the Launceston show day to a date more suitable to the times, and weather.

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