There’s great news for country music fans … in fact anyone who enjoys live music. The Tamworth Country Music Festival is back!
The revised schedule comes after two years of uncertainty and postponements, and Australia’s largest musical festival will run in autumn in 2022, from April 18-24.
Festival stalwart Barry Harley says, “people who have not been here before are in for the most unique music experience of their life. There are over 80 venues, and there’s something like 2000 events”.
Tamworth country music star Ashleigh Dallas just loves the vibe in town. “There’s buskers down the street”, she says. “Every single venue in this town has entertainment, from free entertainment with young artists who are just wanting to get a go, and then you’ve got your ticketed events with your big A-list artists. So it’s just everywhere you look.”
Answers to the event’s most frequently asked questions are here.
Aside from the festival, the country music spirit is alive and well year-round in Tamworth, and visitors are spoilt for choice if they want to embrace it.
Tourist attractions include the Australian Country Music Hall of Fame, that traces the history of the emerging Aussie country music sound from its origins through to modern day.
There’s also the Gallery of Stars Wax Museum, and the National Guitar Museum. They’re strategically placed in the Visitor Information Centre beside Tamworth’s iconic Big Golden Guitar.
If you’re walking around, be sure to look out for Pioneer’s Parade at the entrance to Bicentennial Park and Hands of Fame Park, just a few hundred metres down the road. There are plenty of past and present legends immortalised there.
Until the end of the festival, Tamworth Regional Gallery’s showing an exhibition “Take me home to Tamworth” that interprets the city’s place at the heart of Australian country music.
It’s all evidence that Tamworth’s proud to be not just a little bit country, but a LOT!
