Confidence grows ahead of Tamworth Country Music Festival as clubs hire new staff

With restrictions all but gone, and the Omicron outbreak having come down from its peak, people are beginning to get out and about again, meaning businesses are regaining some much-needed confidence.

The Press director Luke Fielding has even hired two new staff.

"I think April is going to be a good month for Tamworth. We've got a special week coming up with the postponed festival, we're looking forward to it and we're honoured the bar skills course has created two more jobs for us here at The Press," he said.

"I'm an extremely optimistic person, I love music, I love Tamworth and I think April is going to be fantastic, we just need to get the word out there and we need to be positive about it.

"This is going to be good for our community, it's going to be good for the hospitality and accommodation industries."

There was no guarantee Mr Fielding would have hired the duo - Dakota Heldt and Oliver McGill - if he hadn't seen them first hand during a bar skills course, which was an add-on to the RSA training.

While he was already considering a couple of extra workers, he said he wouldn't have hired people straight out of the course if they hadn't shown great promise.

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"I was impressed by the talent, I knew we needed a few staff throughout this and the ones that show that they're willing, the ones that want to get involved, the ones that want to learn - you can tell the ones that are going to make it in the industry," he said.

Cheyenne Meally has just gone through the RSA and bar skills courses, and said she is a lot more confident of now landing a job.

"I did it to benefit my experience through other jobs, I've applied at The Longyard, I'm soon going to be applying at the Tudor Hotel and the Courthouse Hotel," she said.

"So it was more of an experience in my eyes to open up what to do in my future life, so if I don't like retail in the future I can do hospitality and then work my way up to do something else."

Tamworth MP and Minister for Hospitality Kevin Anderson said he was thrilled with the outcome of the courses, and said getting workers skilled up is a worthy cause for the government to flip the bill for.

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