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An iconic Alice Springs tradition billed as the "world's only dry river boating event" has been cancelled for this year.
It will be just the third time in more than 60 years the Henley-on-Todd Regatta, which draws tourists from around the country, has not gone ahead.
The regatta sees boat-like creations hauled by foot up the dry bed of the Todd River, and crews of pirates and Vikings engage in mock battles on the sandy riverbed.
The volunteer organisers missed out on a vital grant because they did not submit documents accounting for how the grant money they received the previous year was spent by the deadline.
"We certainly didn't get everything right on our side," the event's commodore Lester Hamilton told the ABC.
"The acquittal of the grant from the previous year — everything was done, but it was just held up by the auditor and that hadn't been cleared by the time the grant submission went in."
Mr Lester said the "hardworking volunteers" had been doing their best but "one small step" was overlooked.
"We were able to put [our application] in at a later date but by that time a deadline had passed and we missed out on the entire funding," he said.
Mr Lester said the organisers had attempted to scramble for alternative funding once it became clear the usual NT government grant money would not be coming.
"We went around and knocked on so many doors … and the doors didn't open," he said.
He said the event would be returning in 2025.
Push for longer-term contracts
Tourism industry representatives said the cancellation was "very sad".
Tourism Central Australia CEO Danial Rochford said the accounting obligations placed on volunteer organisations were necessary but difficult for groups to deal with.
Mr Rochford suggested longer-term funding deals could ease the administrative burden.
He cited the example of his own tourism peak body, which represents the industry and is in a five-year funding agreement with the NT government.
"An event like the Henley-on-Todd should not having be having to come back to request yearly money," Mr Rochford said.
"We should start to be getting into multi-year agreements with many of our iconic events."
"I hope out of this negative comes a positive."
The event has received hundreds of thousands of dollars in NT government funding from the Community Benefit Fund.
Documents show it receives around $150,000 for each year, but has received multi-year contracts previously.
In the 2018/19 financial year it received $450,000 for a three-year deal.
Event 'transitioning' to business model
NT major events minister Brent Potter said his government "strongly supports" the regatta and had invested $50,000 this year in the "iconic" event.
It had given that sum in the meantime "while a three-year plan to continue delivering the event by Rotary Alice Springs is being finalised", Mr Potter said in a statement.
"On the 26th of June, the new Henley on Todd committee advised [NT Major Events] they have decided to postpone the 2024 event for a raft of reasons including a lack of volunteers and a desire to re-focus and deliver a free event in 2025."
The event organiser Mr Lester did cite other issues beyond the grant money, including an inability to recruit an event manager.
But he said a lack of volunteers had not been an issue.
The organisers had been "transitioning" to a professional business to be less reliant on volunteers as a previous generation of core volunteers moved into retirement.
"We budgeted for that, we planned for that, and then at the last minute, the mat's been pulled out from underneath," Mr Lester said.
The first cancellation in the event's long history was in 1993 when the Todd River ran, making a dry riverbed race impossible.
The second was in 2020 due to restrictions put in place for the COVID-19 pandemic.