events
The Tamworth Country Music Festival is an annual music festival and is a celebration of Australian country music culture and heritage. The festival lasts for two weeks during late January and during this period the city of Tamworth or 'Tam-vegas' as it has become known by visiting celebrities and journalists comes alive, with visitors from all across the country and worldwide who come to join in the festivities. The festival has many times been counted among the world's top ten music festivals. In 2007 Forbes rated it as number 8 of the Worldâs Coolest Music Festivals. The enormous number of visitors during the bash doubles the city's population and brings significant economic benefits to the region. Visitor numbers for the 2007 festival were estimated to be 50,000.
The mass number of visitors means that accommodation throughout the area is consistently booked out for this period up to 12 months in advance, with many visitors camping in caravans and tents by the cities riverside. The festival is the second biggest country music festival in the world. A significant degree of national media coverage is given to the festival with all television networks showing the festival in the news. The commercial television stations Channel Seven, Ten and Nine have all broadcast shows and segments from the festival.
