Queenstown Winter Festival organisers knew in advance there would be no parade as part of Tuesday night's Mardi Gras, because of insufficient funding, but chose not to tell the public.
However, festival director Simon Green said yesterday he was confident the parade would return next year.
Thousands of people gathered at Earnslaw Park ready for the annual parade, which traditionally wends through streets in the centre of the town, and features Donna Demente masks, stilt walkers and other performers.
However, many were left disappointed as the news there would not be a parade this year started to spread.
Mr Green said an application for community-based funding, which had been unexpectedly denied, meant organisers could not afford to put the parade on, and they shared the community's disappointment.
He could not remember when he received the bad news, but intentionally did not make the announcement public.
"We didn't go out and tell everybody it wasn't happening, because that's not a good look, either."
He said it was becoming increasingly difficult to secure community-based funding.
"We're probably sitting at about half [the funding] that we had a few years ago.
"That puts a real strain on us in terms of all the free or community events."
Mr Green said the festival had "one fifth" of the funding required for the $250,000 of community events in the festival.
The festival organisers had applied to "every funding body" and were confident a pending application, which would have allowed the Mardi Gras parade to be staged, would be approved.
However, it was a case of being "too late to do anything about it".
"Our budget had been committed," he said.
