CANCELLATION of last Thursday's Okehampton Show less than 24 hours before it was due to open, caused many people to ask why it could not have been held on another date.
But the show's organisers say it would have been 'quite impossible' to postpone the show to a later date.
The 102nd Okehampton Show was cancelled last week because of appalling weather on the Tuesday night and Wednesday morning — two inches of rain fell on the site, rendered car parking areas inaccessible and the showground itself too slippery and dangerous to use.
But many people, some in phone-ins to local radio, questioned why the show could not simply be postponed.
In a statement, the Okehampton Show Committee said: 'Postponement would mean not only settling on a new date but contacting everyone to see if they could still attend, refunding those for whom it wouldn't be convenient, rearranging judges and their accommodation, altering the layout of the showground for trade stand purposes and generally rearranging the entire set up.
'The amount of work involved in trying to organise a new date would be enormous and quite impossible in the few weeks available.
'Even if it could be done, the resulting show would be a shadow of its normal self and we don't think anyone would like to see that.'
Work to put the show together starts at the end of October with decisions taken about horse and livestock classes, selection of judges, ordering of rosettes, tenders sent out and awarded, choosing entertainment, the preparation of schedules as well as completing the trade stand paperwork.
Coupled with this, three agricultural shows follow Okehampton and shortly afterwards the important annual cattle and sheep sales start.
The middle of September is the end of a long showing season for horse and livestock exhibitors and, as a result of the atrocious weather, farmers are currently behind with work on the farms.
Trade stand exhibitors who are not local tend to come down to the West Country for the whole season and by mid-September they have returned home.
All of these factors make postponing the show a nigh on impossible task.
Show secretary Gilly Oliver added: 'We are absolutely staying positive. What happened this year was beyond anyone's control.
'We've already had an enormous amount of support. We will be back next year. I'm a firm believer in the fact that this can't happen three years in a row.
'I think people need to remember that last year was the first time in the show's long history that it was cancelled due to weather.
'That it's happened again is quite extraordinary.'
Okehampton Show has not been the only show too fall foul of the weather. Northlew Horse Show, which was postponed from August 2 to August 23, has now been cancelled for this year due to the persistent heavy rain.