The long weekender

Unlike most other capital cities, long weekends are usually chess free in Canberra. Of course Street Chess still runs, but with a single exception, Canberra does not take advantage of the extra day off work to hold a big chess event. We did run the ACT Championships on the Canberra Day long weekend for a couple of years, but there were objections from players who wanted to spend those 3 days at the beach etc
Of course the big exception is the O2C Doeberl Cup, which is held on the best long weekend of the year, Easter. In its early years the tournament shifted between Easter and the Queens Birthday weekend, as part of the policy of reserving such weekends for country events, but once the merit of holding the tournament over 4 days become apparent, the date became fixed in stone. Sadly the policy of holding long weekend events outside of the state capitals has long since gone (with a couple of exceptions), so it is off to the big smoke for the travelling chess player. Of course having an event in your own city is quite attractive, so I hope that this weekends events (in Sydney, Melbourne and Brisbane) all get a good local turnout.