That’s the view of entertainment venues manager Peter Ross, as the show premieres in the city today before heading off on a national and global tour.

In a first for Tamworth, the cast and crew had lived in the city for about 10 days beforehand, using the performance venue, TRECC, as their space to also put the show together, rehearse and sew costumes.

Mr Ross said that, in their time here, they had hired local electricians, carpenters, welders, even a seamstress.

They’d also shopped in the city for items such as costuming materials and shoes.

Mr Ross said an arts professional in other city had recommended Tamworth to producer Tim Lawson, who was looking for a location and happens to have also once worked with Mr Ross.

The company behind the show, The Works Entertainment, has a reputation for world-class theatrical productions.

Creative and executive producer Simon Painter said TRECC had been “a pretty bloody fantastic facility” to rehearse, and the city had much going for it as well.

“What happens with these shows, we rehearse overseas, but when you bring it all together … you need a week or two [in] a facility,” he said.

“If you were to try and do this in Sydney and have this much space, it’s very cost-prohibitive. [This] is really good and it’s kind of a win-win, because Tamworth gets a great show and we get to use the venue.

“It’s much more cost-effective for the cast and also they love it: they get to see a bit of inside Australia that they wouldn’t necessarily have seen if they were just coming for a week.”

Mr Painter said the show team had been “really surprised at the quality of food and the gorgeous weather”.

“I spent the last week in London, Madrid, Istanbul and Beijing, so it was very nice to get into the heat.”

Tamworth also had “really affordable” hotel rooms and “a great taxi network, and so it’s actually a very manageable place to put on a show.”

“If this goes well, it’s not just us that will be back to rehearse other shows; there will be other producers looking at it as well,” Mr Painter said ahead of the shows. 

“It’s a bit of an experiment, but we’re very excited by it.”

Mr Ross said the city was lucky to have a venue such as TRECC with the capacity for a company “to create a bespoke show like this”.

“Not only that, we’ve got an excellent team who understand putting shows together and understand the theatrical environment, which is really important.”

Mr Ross said there was “a lot of interest in the regions are far as being a great environment to create work”.

In Victoria, for example, Arena Theatre Company recently announced it would move from Melbourne to Bendigo.

Mr Ross said he was now in talks with a children’s theatre producer to come to the Capitol Theatre to do workshops and ultimately premiere their show there before a national tour.

Such projects could also be great opportunities for local actors.

“Certainly the producer we’re talking to about workshopping the children’s piece, the idea there is to bring the director, writer, designer and other key people to town but use some of our actors to workshop scripts initially,” he said.

“They probably won’t go on to be in the shows, but they will assist in the earlier stages.”

Mr Ross said the hope was that satisfied customers would spread the word.

“We would hope that they’re going to talk to the wider entertainment industry of how Tamworth is capable of assisting producers deliver the birth of their shows.”