A modified festival was well supported at Gosling Creek on Sunday, but the absence of the marathon, half-marathon and 10km distances for men's and women's fields reduced competitor numbers significantly.

The cap of 650 runners meant getting anywhere near last year's near-2000 runners mark was impossible, but 449 people signed up to take part in this year's festival.

The only distance held this year was a 6km dash, which was effectively three laps of the Gosling Creek circuit.

Mr Cooper said the committee's hope is to return to the full card of racing, over Saturday and Sunday, next year.

"That's the anticipation. With vaccines rolling out and the way Australia has managed covid, we expect we'll be able to do the full festival next year," he said.

"We've had a lot of people from Sydney, Canberra, Dubbo and those areas of the Central West that have sent emails saying they wish they could do the half or do the full, but I think they realise that covid stuffed us up."

He said the decision to run just the 6km distance was to ensure the 2021 festival didn't have any road closures.

Mr Cooper said the limited number of events on the card was a byproduct of having to organise the event in such a short space of time. It takes close to eight months to sort through the logistics of a full-blown running festival in Orange.

"We did something more limited that still involved a fair bit of organising but it was easier to cancel something like this as it's all contained," he added.

"It still keeps the flag flying and still keeps us in the calendar.

"The staggering of the starts has worked well, everyone has complied with our covid safety requirements, the weather fortunately has been good, we've had lots of volunteers turn up to do all the marshalling and setting up so we're very happy with how it's gone."

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