Working for Tamworth City Council at the time as the business development manager, he played a key role in developing the Tamworth Regional Entertainment and Conference Centre (TRECC).

Mr Power said during the 90s, it was becoming obvious a venue like TRECC was desperately needed to convince the country music world that Tamworth was serious about keeping the festival.

"I think there's a real chance if we didn't have a proper venue for the prestige of the award, and weren't able to televise it and have a good stage to do that, then Gold Coast or somewhere like that would have stepped in and offered the association a better venue," he said.

He said the idea of TRECC had been floating around for a while but it was his job, among others, to make sure the thought bubble became reality.

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"At the time I think it was fair to say council was struggling with how to go about it, there was always a will there and they wanted to do it, and there was a group business people wanting to do it because of the commercial side of the festival," he said.

"But the council just didn't know how to go about it so my role was to make it happen from council's point of view.

"Tamworth made the festival happen and this is an example of how Tamworth made the venue happen which consolidated the future of the awards."

Mr Power said will only gets you so far though, as councils operate on proposals, plans and designs in order to make decisions. Working alongside festival co-founder Max Ellis, he travelled to Newcastle and Sydney to discuss things like seating, parking, lighting and stage size.

Eventually he formed a package to put to council, and after receiving an 'incredible' offer from local constructor Robert Segboer to build it for just $4.8 million, and going through environmental and community impact assessments, the decision was made to push ahead with it.

With TRECC having now hosted countless performances and functions, and become one of council's best assets, Mr Power said he can't help but feel proud.

"It was one of the things in my life that I was most proud of, that I was able to pull that all together and get something which has lasted 23 years plus," he said.

"And is still the home of the awards, will remain the home of the awards and has so many other value-adding things for Tamworth."

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