Tamworth Country Music Festival boss slams social media haters at TCMF feedback event

The negative element was a complete no-show at last night's Country Music feedback session.

But Barry Harley, manager of the festival, condemned comments that called on council to can the 48 year old event.

"I think it's based in complete ignorance. It's technology in the hands of idiots.

"Because they don't have country music as their first choice of music they want to seize any opportunity they have to take it down."

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Condemning social media haters as not fans of country music, he said they had "lost sight" of the enormous economic benefits of the festival.

The TCMF manager said the attitude that council should "cancel the festival because they'll drink our water" before the January event even hurt turnout.

In a speech in advance of the feedback session Mr Harley rebutted many of the claims that had spread last year before the event.

"It was all aimed at how council is ripping everyone off," he said.

"Seemingly we must have a group of people on the top floor there who spend twelve months conceiving how we can destroy the festival, which is as further from the truth as possible."

Would TCMF drink all Tamworth's water? No. The city lost barely a day's water.

Was council charging buskers and deterring people from performing in one of the festival's most notable events? No, buskers get in free.

Were numbers down? Only a bit, in the worst drought in living memory.

And was council fabricating all the statistics? No.

Tamworth Town Hall's Passchendaele room was sparsely populated with community members.

The feedback was universally constructive criticism.

The most common theme: various issues to do with buskers on Peel street.

One performer complained of noisy neighbours hurting his performance.

Another said he had witnessed intimidation tactics and cartel-like behaviour by brokers staking out "their spot" on the main street.

Council's busking manager responded to the complaints by saying some businesses liked to adopt their busker, and broke up buskers who weren't able to play nice together.