This year, the festival shrank from two days to a single day, keeping all the most popular items and ditching those that weren’t so popular.

The model worked, with a fairly constant crowd all day, with everyone involved in all the activities.

The market stall holders all reported strong sales, and posted gleeful comments on the festival Facebook page.

The music line-up featured a 50-50 mix of hardened old blues rockers and keen young under-20s performers, all based in the Macleay Valley, and the audience showed their appreciation with constant dancing and cheering.

Secretary-treasurer Heather Kind said it was hard work, but worth the effort and she made a note to get more volunteers for the next outing.

“We underestimated how much time it would take to get the market stalls sorted, our previous organiser of markets had retired, and she used to make it look easy,” Heather said.

“But it takes longer than you think, and that meant I wasn’t where I needed to be to organise a couple of other things, but people just stepped up and made it happen anyway.

“We had nothing but positive feedback from everyone involved, and we had visitors from all the surrounding villages and towns – some even came down the mountain from Dorrigo and Armidale.”