The Woden Valley Youth Choir has had to resort to starting a GoFundMe page to ensure Canberra's much-loved Carols by Candlelight return to Stage 88 this Christmas.
The campaign had by Wednesday raised a little over $1300 of the $33,000 required.
The carols are slated to return to Stage 88 in Commonwealth Park on Saturday, December 10.
Due to COVID, the last time they were held in full form was in 2019.
The choir's artistic director Olivia Swift said the carols were held in a smaller, restricted way in 2020, again due to the pandemic.
But this year it was hoped the joy and spectacle of the full-blown event could return.
Ms Swift said there was a common misconception that the ACT government put on the carols at Stage 88, but it was all down to the volunteer-run Woden Valley Youth Choir.
The choir had lost its major sponsor in 2018, even before the pandemic, and was now trying to raise the money from the public to put on the long-running festive event.
"The biggest expense is sound and lighting, which are obviously essential to running a music event," she said.
"But then there's things like we need to bring in toilets, there's insurance costs, ambulance. This list goes on and on."
Ms Swift said during the COVID-affected carols in 2020, only 2000 people were allowed to come and fences were put up to isolate the event.
"It was great to still be able to host it but it was not the same open community spirit that we want it to be and what it has been in the past," she said.
By contrast, about 10,000 people attended the 2019 carols.
Ms Swift said finding sponsorship during COVID had been difficult and now, in the face of cost of living pressures, was providing impossible.
"A lot of people believe it is run by the ACT government, but it's not. It's run by the Woden Valley Youth Choir and we are a small community organisation run by a committee of parent volunteers, they all work full-time jobs," she said.
"It's a lot for a small community organisation to pull off, but we do it every year as our gift to the community. But finding the sponsorship has been impossible.
"We're now asking the Canberra community to back us and help us put on this event that we give to them. It's their event and we just need some help to get it off the ground."
Ms Swift agreed there was a hunger for community events such as carols by candlelight which had been put on pause during the pandemic.
"We're keen to get back out there," she said.
The 50 children in the choir were rehearsing for the carols, hoping they would get back on stage.
Ms Swift said the choir has been going for more than 50 years and the Stage 88 carols had been going since the 1980s.
"It's such a special event, the kids love it," she said.
"It's just such a high-energy and joyful and uplifting event and it's really great to give this present to the community. It's such a fun, family, happy occasion.
"Given the last couple of years, those kinds of happy community events are really what people are after."
The Woden Valley Youth Choir's Carols by Candlelight GoFundMe page can be found here.
