The carnival clown operator is the latest in seven generations working in sideshows and rodeos. The family owned a travelling circus in the 19^th century.

"Last night here, there was more people than you'd see at the Sydney show," he said.

"I have never seen a crowd like it anywhere. You just couldn't move!"

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It was a far cry from 2020, when the Manilla Show finished just one day before the first national lockdown.

After the two-year pandemic hiatus, the town's show came roaring back at the weekend, with new events, convenient and cheap ticketing and traditional favourites all drawing in both locals and visitors from further abroad.

Attendance was reportedly even higher than organisers expected, with the Friday night FMX bike display and fireworks providing an enormous success.

But traditional events continued to be popular, and have evolved to suit the modern times.

Farm produce steward Dave Alwyn said they had brought in an entirely new category this year: honey.

Both amateurs and professionals apiarists were welcome to enter, and the show received several entrants, which they considered a success.

There was one hitch: how to actually judge the produce.

"I only discovered this a week ago," he

"I talked to a secretary, she said are you still going to be doing the job this year. I said yep.

"We've got honey this year [she said]

"Oh good!"

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Former Department of Primary Industries officer Lester McCormick has been judging farm produce at the Manilla show since the 80s, but it was his first time evaluating apiarists.

He's not an enormous honey fanatic, so he had to bone up very fast. He did a lot of research online.

"When you have the criteria and you understand what each other criteria means, you're fine," he said.

"I just go across each of the honeys, I give them a score [according to the criteria]. I do colour first, and then I go across all of them and do density, and then aroma.

"So just work your way through, but do the whole lot at the same time, to have a direct comparison."

Mr McCormick said they'd had some outstanding honey.

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Isla Martin travelled from Tamworth to her grandparents' home in Manilla on her horse Rio.

She won several ribbons.

"They're probably the best animal ever," she said.

Mum Belinda Martin said the region's horse community had gathered and turned the competition into quite a tough contest.

"She puts a lot of work and effort and time into it, so she deserves the rewards that come with it, for sure," she said.

"But I think the reward for her is to be around horses and being out and about doing things with them."

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This year will be the first without the threat of lockdown hanging over the head of event organisers.

Few would find the return of the agricultural shows circuit as important as John Castle.

Four generations of his family have followed shows.

When the country locked down in March 2020, locking him out of Queensland and freezing the agricultural show circuit, it was the first time the Delungra resident spent winter in NSW.

He put his food trailer in the front yard of his house and operated like a takeaway store.

"That's what we've been doing ever since," he said.

But it's time to get moving again, he said.

"Things are coming to an end, we've got to get up and move!"

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