Hamilton's popular Carnivale celebration will not go ahead this year, but the suburb's new business association plans to stage another major event.
The festival, which was held on March 10 last year, has been sidelined after organiser Hamilton Chamber of Commerce was banned from applying for Newcastle council funds to run it.
Council chief executive officer Jeremy Bath said in July last year that a new organisation would run Carnivale and he had "already reached out to the events group that has run it for the past few years".
The Newcastle Herald has been told Carnivale draws 30,000 people and generates $500,000 in spending.
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The newly formed Hamilton Business Association appears poised to replace many of the chamber's functions.
Spokesperson Janice Musumeci, one of a group of retailers who last year criticised the council's new business levy funding application process for being too complicated, said the group was "super busy" planning a "major community event or festival".
"The association is currently finalising an event brief and will seek expressions of interest for an event manager that can work with us to stage such an event," she said. "We are looking forward to sharing more details in the future."
The HBA board includes business people Kellie Mann, Sandra Malloy, Sherynne Smith, Christine Martin and Margaret Glenn.
On the loss of Carnivale, Ms Musumeci said it was "not appropriate for me to comment on an event that was registered and hosted by the Hamilton Chamber of Commerce, and you would need to talk to them as to why it is not holding it in 2020".
Hamilton Chamber board member Robert Burton said no new group had been incorporated to apply for BIA funds to run Carnivale.
"It takes 12 months to do the Carnivale, and, if there was no group coordinated, they just couldn't have the timetable for it," he said.
"It is disappointing. I think we all look forward to it. It's a good drawcard for the street.
"A few retailers asked about it, but it was just that position we were placed in that we didn't have a committee that was legal."
Hamilton Chamber and Newcastle Now were frozen out of the BIA system because the council said they had breached previous funding agreements.
Mr Burton did not blame the council for reaching this conclusion because "we had some anomalies that weren't correct".
"I think it probably could have been handled better. There was a clash of personalities," he said.
"It was a bit disappointing, because a lot of work was put in by the chamber members, thousands of hours."
Former chamber president Nathan Errington, who ran in the 2017 council election on a ticket with independent councillor Kath Elliott, is no longer a chamber member after his newsagency closed last year.
Mr Burton said the chamber was "largely impotent now because the funding's not there" and he was tossing up whether to join HBA.
A council spokesperson said Hamilton Carnivale was trademarked to the chamber and no other organisation could run an event under that name.
