This was the collective view of industry stakeholders when they met on Wednesday night to dissect the event.

At a forum held at The Family Hotel, artists, retailers, hoteliers and venue operators had their say on January’s festival and the results were mixed.

Festival manager Barry Harley said preliminary figures suggested 30 per cent of Festival guests were first timers.

However he raised concerns that the final weekend of the Festival wasn’t as busy as it had been before.

“We had a strong festival, the takings are overall up however it did slow down on the last Friday and Saturday,” he said.

“All the ticketed shows sold more tickets than the previous years and for gigs that require financial reasons for happening, that’s a really good sign.”

Mr Harley said ticketed shows in Tamworth Council’s entertainment venues had increased by 11 per cent with 31,000 tickets sold with similar results reported across the city’s private venues.

“It’s a good sign that people are paying for music,” he said.

“I’m not going to say it’s the biggest ever because clearly it was not.

“What we aim for is to be constantly better and I think the reports we have got back so far are achieving that.” 

Venue operators including Wests’ Entertainment Group and The Pub Group recorded higher than normal ticket sales for their paid shows, but both reported a’mass exodus’ towards the end of the event due to the end of school holidays.

Local industry executives also suggested ticket sales to next year’s festival could be advertised from the Hat’s Off To Country event to allow families more time to plan their trip to the city.

Concerns were also raised about the nightly free concerts in Toyota Park impacting on ticket sales for some of the smaller venues.

However stakeholders agreed the festival was more “inclusive” than previous years with a “friendly and welcoming atmosphere.”