The WoolOn Creative Fashion Event should go solo, but whether it will be staged this year has yet to be decided.
That was the verdict of a public meeting last week, held to gauge support for the event to be separated from the annual Blossom Festival, festival committee chairwoman Clair Higginson said.
About 30 people were at the meeting, so a wide cross-section of views was aired.
Those taking part included people involved with organising the festival and WoolOn through to entrants, sponsors, spectators and former judges of the event.
"The meeting decided it was a good idea to separate WoolOn from Blossom Festival and it was time to make the event stand-alone,'' she said.
Because it would be up to a new committee to organise WoolOn, some of the discussion revolved around whether there was enough time to organise this year's event and make a good job of it, considering a date and venue had yet to be decided.
The opposing view was if the event was not staged, it would lose the momentum built up over the years.
WoolOn was started 13 years ago as part of the New Zealand Merino Shears, to showcase the use of wool in fashion.
It became part of the festival programme 10 years ago.
Ms Higginson said a further public meeting would be held soon to form an entity to run WoolOn - possibly an incorporated society - and to elect people to a committee.
