Tamworth Country Music Festival 2019 dates announced as Council seeks feedback on our event

In the lead up to a community feedback session to be held next month, council officials say the devil will be in the detail of feedback delivered by festival goers at the 10-day event.

Locals will also be able to have their say at the Tamworth Town Hall’s Passchendaele Room on Tuesday, March 20 from 6pm. Festival manager Barry Harley said anecdotal reports suggested scorching January temperatures impacted on the big event.

”We’re still in the process of talking to as many people as we can, traders, businesses, venues and accommodation providers to get an idea of what they feel,” he said.

“One company might do better than the other for different reasons.

RELATED READING:

“But one thing that is coming through is the heat did have an impact on Peel Street and some businesses that we spoke to said they didn’t do as well as they hoped or expected. It’s not conclusive at this stage but it is been validated by a lot of venues that have experienced increased numbers.”

Mr Harley said while council could not “control the weather”, staff were still speaking to stakeholders to find out what could be done to encourage more people into the CBD during the hot festival days.

“We put that feedback into planning or future years. While there’s areas we can’t control like the weather, we can look into more shade and more seating,” he said.

He downplayed concerns of low crowd numbers and said the first weekend and the final weekend of the country music festival were both well attended..

“It was a big first weekend and a group of people left and appeared to be replaced by another group of people who came for the second weekend,” he said.

“Being a public holiday on the Friday, the evidence was the weekend was quite large and as big as previous years. The venues we have spoken to have indicated both weekends were strong.” The 2019 Festival will be held from January 18 to 27.