KEITH Urban has told the visiting Tamworth Regional Council delegates to Nashville he would love to bring wife Nicole Kidman and his daughters to the city.
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While in Nashville for CMA Music Fest, Tamworth Regional Council director, business and events John Sommerlad and country music unit manager Barry Harley met with Keith Urban who said he would like to return to Tamworth.
“He’s always expressed interest that he’d like to come to Tamworth again,” Mr Harley said.
“He’s said previously how significant Tamworth was to his career, but being a megastar, there’s a lot of competition for his time. He signed a guitar for us and said that Tamworth was where it all began for his career. He was a huge hit at the LP Field concert, they went wild over him.”
TRC mayor Col Murray said they would like him to return.
“We would be very pleased for him to return,” he said. “He indicated that he would like to come back to Tamworth and bring not only his wife to Tamworth, but his children and he said he’d be doing that just as soon as he was able.”
Councillor Murray said Urban told Mr Sommerlad and Mr Harley that he wanted to show Kidman and their daughters, Sunday and Faith, where he started busking in Peel St.
Mr Sommerlad said CMA Fest had 10 per cent more people visit this year, with more people through Fan Fair X, where they had an information stall on Tamworth and NSW.
“The venue had to open early to push the people through each day,” Mr Sommerlad said. “Giveaways were hot items and we were on the hop.”
He said thousands of people would have been to the stall, with many having a “genuine interest in Australia”.
“The Americans like Australia and many would like to come to Australia,” he said.
“There were people there from the UK and other parts of Europe. There was one lady from Switzerland who saw the stand last year and brought a group of Swiss people to the festival this year and said she would be doing that again.”
Mr Sommerlad said Australia was more appealing to Americans at the moment because of the exchange rate, but the tyranny of distance was still the major issue.
“But, we had people from Nashville here in January – some part of the official delegation and some not part of that and more people coming next week,” he said.
“There will be more in January next year, they might have sister city links, but then there are other people who might come because they want to and they can afford to come.”
During the trip, Mr Sommerlad also visited North Carolina for meetings about economic development.
“North Carolina is one of the pin-ups of economic development in the US because it’s been transformed from agricultural to manufacturing, to the biggest research and development centre in the US in 30 years,” he said.
