Organisers for the Tamworth Country Music Festival have confirmed that, following the cancellation of its 2021 edition last September, the event will return in 2022.
The news came on Thursday (October 21) with organisers reassuring that rain, hail or shine – “regardless of restrictions that may still be in place” – the festival will go down between Friday January 14 and Sunday 23. In a statement, festival manager Barry Harley said he and his crew were “excited to celebrate the return of the festival, and the comeback of live music events more generally”.
“There’s no denying that it’s been a challenging couple of years for the industry,” he continued, “but we have been reassured and inspired by the release of the NSW Government’s Reopening Roadmap, and we want the industry, artists, promoters, visitors, everyone to know that the Tamworth Country Music Festival is on and we’re ready to celebrate.”
The ten-day festival will sport a sprawling list of free and ticketed shows, split between several venues throughout the regional NSW city. A total of 111 artists have been announced thus far, standouts including Kasey Chambers, Troy Cassar-Daley, Felicity Urquhart and Josh Cunningham (the latter of The Waifs), Fanny Lumsden, Brad Cox and Busby Marou.
The event will mark the 50th anniversary of the Tamworth Country Music Festival, which first took place in 1972. Harley says the festival’s organisers have “huge celebrations planned” to commemorate the occasion, including an all-star concert held at the Tamworth Regional Entertainment Conference Centre (TRECC) on Wednesday January 19.
According to this week’s press release, the concert “will showcase the [festival’s] evolution from its modest beginnings in [1972] into the biggest country music festival in the Southern Hemisphere today” and, between performances, will feature “rare video footage of the pioneers of Australian country music”.
Tickets and full details for the 2022 Tamworth Country Music Festival are available from the festival’s website.