With life-size replicas of some of the Jurassic, Triassic and Cretaceous period's most fearsome beasts, the three-day festival has to be seen to be believed.

It comes with a promise of T-Rex - "School groups and families in Wollongong [can] meet various life size animatronic dinosaurs and come face to face with the legendary Tyrannosaurus rex" - and 10,000 free tickets - "the exhibition offers free tickets to public schools in and around Wollongong".

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But Wollongong's chances of actually seeing the show, billed for May 7, may be as high as the chance of seeing a real Brachiosaurus cooling off in Puckey's Lagoon.

Experience from other cities suggests the festival actually does have to be seen to be believed, after the Wallsend show was postponed for the fifth time since February 2021.

This followed angst in Sydney, Toowomba and Wagga Wagga, after cancellations blamed on Covid (the Wagga event went ahead).

Wallsend MP Sonia Hornery wants action, saying people could not get refunds.

"The operator has been very hard to contact to discuss the community's concerns," she said.

No, this isn't related to Clive Palmer's "Palmersaurus" world at Coolum (as far as we know). But from the beginning, the Wollongong "event" seemed to be a few Velociraptors short of a herd. It was described on Facebook as being in "Wollongang", starting on May 7, but a map indicated a site near Barangaroo in Sydney.

Other "what's-on" sites say the Dinosaur Festival will be in Sydney on May 7.

Event organiser David Huni, based in South Africa, has faced criticism before. He said the company had not done anything wrong because the terms and conditions specified that refunds would not be given where the event was cancelled because of the pandemic.

"On Facebook we said they can get a refund but when they write to us we ask why they need the refund but we get so many emails so we can't answer all the emails at the same time," Mr Huni told the Newcastle Herald.

"Most of the time we send a generic email to the customers and refer them to our terms and conditions which states that we can't give a refund. I encourage everyone to hold on because the event is coming but there is nothing that we have done that is unlawful."

Mr Huni has not responded to the Mercury's questions.

A UOW spokesman said there had been no dinosaur festival booking made nor requested.

Wollongong tickets had not gone on sale.

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