Bobby Jack’s Festival was held in Walcha on Saturday following an idea proposed late last year to provide a venue for bands in New England to showcase their original music.

More than 600 adults and 200 children came through the gates, and committee member Kit Dawson said the group was extremely happy as they had set their break-even number at 400.

“It was an absolute roaring success,” he said.

“We had good numbers of people, and everybody was just so happy. It was really nice to have a happy crowd, the stallholders all did really well, and the bands on the main stage had a good time. The people on the Get Out of Your Garage stage were buzzing to be up there in front of an audience, and I think we had some acts play that will probably be on the main stage next year.”

The day started at 11 am with a welcome to country which included a moving rendition of ‘Took the children away’ performed by the granddaughter of Archie Roach and a performance by the Dunghutti Dancers.

Then two stages provided continuous entertainment from bands playing everything from swamp rock to folk until 11 pm. 

Belly dancing workshops and performances, kids entertainment and puppet making were also on offer, and a behemoth sculptural bonfire was lit at dusk. 

Mr Dawson was responsible for the bonfire which was inspired by the man the festival is named after – Bobby Jack. Before setting alight to his work Kit explained to the gathering that Bobby was renowned for building enormous sculptural bonfires on his property and burning them during his celebrations.

“I really enjoyed making the sculpture, and a few people said it was too nice to burn, but that is what it is all about – it was made to burn.” 

Kit also placed copper castings in the base of the bonfire sculpture, but unfortunately, they proved to be the one element of the festival that didn’t succeed.

“Basically I put a bed of sand in the centre of the fire and then into that I pushed impressions of the raven totem we have used for the festival, then cut copper and laid it into the impressions,” he said. 

“We might have ended up with some castings which could have been cleaned up and brought onto next year.”

Bobby Jack’s Festival will be back again in 2019.