It's a huge disappointment for the organisers in First Light Rotary, who are used to raising tens of thousands for the charity.

Rotary's Phillip Knight said the traditional event - which can attract thousands of costumed drinkers to a tour of the city's hotels - was not ever going to be a safe option during a pandemic.

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The local charity was forced to plan an alternative.

They came up with a virtual crawl, with drinkers organising their own dress-up events in smaller groups.

The idea has proven a failure, Mr Knight said.

"We were hopeful of selling a lot more than we did sell," he said.

"The way it's turned out I wish we'd never done it. That's hindsight. We were just attempting to hopefully raise a reasonable amount of money for Ronald McDonald House, but that just hasn't happened."

The 2019 crawl raised a enormous $22,000 to help house families of sick children getting care at Tamworth hospital.

Everyone expected the 2020 event to raise far less than that.

But it was hoped that most of the 500, $15 tickets printed for the event would have sold, raising something like $5000, or so.

Organisers also hoped the 2020 event would help keep the idea in people's minds to set them up for 2021.

Instead, just 10 tickets were sold.

Mr Knight rejected the idea that COVID-19 fears sparked by a contemporaneous Sydney outbreak of the virus had kept people indoors.

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"We'd seen that week groups of up to 20 going out, dressing up in various themes, not Santa costumes," he said.

"But I think one of things was because COVID made things so uncertain we were late getting on the ground, I think that may have contributed to [the outcome] because there was so much uncertainty.

"By the time we were able to go ahead with it, it didn't leave a lot of time for advertising, even though we promoted it heavily. It just didn't take off.

"Obviously COVID's affected it, but I don't think it's stopped people going out."

The organising committee will have to go back to the drawing board, he said.

Funds raised will still be donated to Tamworth's Ronald McDonald House in coming weeks.

The event was held over the middle fortnight of December.

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