ACROSS Tamworth Country Music Festival, revellers have seen stickers proudly positioned in the window of several shopfronts.
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The stickers symbolise the business is one of 110 participating in Tamworth Regional Council's Festival Friendly Businesses initiative.
The program aims to encourage festivalgoers to shop local and promotes the businesses to a bigger audience.
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The council's economic and destination development co-ordinator Kate Baker said so far the campaign had been a major success.
"Applications for the program closed last week and we still had some businesses coming to us after they closed looking to get involved," Ms Baker said.
"Initially we had about 50 businesses signed up and, by the time the applications closed, we finished with 110.
"I don't think we had set any expectations, but we were really pleased with the interest it gathered from local businesses."
As part of the of the initiative, a participating business is drawn at random for additional promotion on the Tamworth Country Music Festival's Facebook page.
A Bela Vida Beauty was the lucky business on day 5 and owner Belinda Cupples said she was delighted to be part of the campaign.
"We have certainly seen some growth in our social media following thanks to the Festival Friendly Businesses initiative," she said.
"In terms of being busier than last year, it is difficult to tell at this stage.
"However, I'm a big believer in exposure so that people remember you in the future.
"I think this program is going to be great for us in terms of future and return business."
Ms Baker said she hoped the initiative would keep gaining momentum for the rest of the festival.
"We are certainly off to a good start and I'm confident we will continue to receive positive feedback from businesses," she said.
"Once the festival is said and done, we will be surveying all of the participants to get a gauge on exactly how successful it was and exploring the scope to implement similar campaigns throughout the year.
"Personally, I think this initiative could be implemented in various different ways throughout the year.
"However, we will get a clearer idea of what that might look like at the end of the festival."