Over 17,500 attended Murrumbateman Field Days on the weekend with organisers elated with the mostly smooth return back since 2019 and many volunteers and community groups support. With 300 exhibitors onsite, down on the previous event in 2019, the weekend was still a bustling success, with businesses booking larger sites this year to showcase their products at the very popular event in the region and on the field days circuit. Tractors, machinery and mowers were all popular and very impressive displays! Home and garden, information sites and fashion stalls were in abundance, with some opting to celebrate milestones.
Murrumbateman Public School’s P&C member Kate Olsen was part of the team of volunteers scanning tickets and welcoming the crowd
“It’s been wonderful to have the Murrumbateman field days active again after two years of it being cancelled and seeing our community come back together. People from Young, Tumut, Binalong, Goulburn, all coming through, and lots of people are considering Murrumbateman Public School now because they’ve seen the uniforms and have spoken to our wonderful staff. It’s really exciting and great to be fundraising for our P&C,” said Kate
Wendy Tuckerman was onsite to congratulate drumMUSTER, who have reached an incredible feat, collecting 40 million drums through their recycling program.
With loads of entertainment throughout the weekend, two new headline acts, world-champion whip cracker Nathan “Whippy” Griggs and up-and-coming country duo, Zac & George, drew enormous crowds. Whippy held two shows daily and a whip-cracking workshop in the afternoons, entertaining crowds with his showman persona, signature crack along to music style and fire whips.
Over on the Village Green Stage, Aboriginal Elder Michael Bell opened the event with a well-received Welcome to Country speech. Visitors stopping for a meal were treated to an all-day lineup across the weekend of Yass Valley musicians, JCM, The Sun Fishers, Jess Keating, Daniel Kelly, Max McGrath and nearby musicians Trev Tak, Ben Drysdale and Caleb Ball and Twilight Jazz Band. Dancers and drummers also wooed crowds with Murrumbateman’s Dazzle Dance Academy and Tanamasi Drummers, and Merici College.
Sunday’s lunch crowd was treated to a special performance from up-and-coming country duo, Zac &George and their band. Onstage for close to an hour, the boys belted out their latest releases, new tunes that were all very well received and also let us know their hit song ‘Redwine and roses’ debuted at number 26 on the country town airplay charts. The Village Green was filled with delicious food stalls, catered by returning community groups with some additional commercial sites to keep up with demand. Back on the oval, a regional wine and beer garden filled the spot for many shoppers keen for a break.
Makers of Murrumbateman set up as a collective offering their cool climate wines and cheese platters. Canberra-based Bentspoke Brewing Co, and Tumut River Brewing Co from Tumut, offered a variety of craft beers to enjoy in the sun or under the shaded canopying the fenced-off, licensed area on the oval.
Demonstrations and displays were fantastic and well received by fans and new field days attendees. Upon arrival at the south gate, you couldn’t miss the roaring sound coming from Yass Antique Farm Machinery Club’s displays of treasured tractors and machinery, draught horses pulling slashers and mowers, sheep shearing, damper making, billy boiling and the club members’ old fashioned hospitality.
The sand arenas were full of informative equine workshops and delighted crowds with displays from Rivergum Brumbies, Cherry Tree Equine and Equisage. Visitors dropped into the educational sessions held at the Rural Talks Tent and learnt about topics related to the rural lifestyle. Topics covered internet safety, hobby farming, rural crime prevention, beekeeping and the varroa bee mite, farm safety, emotional support, the Australian Fire Danger Rating System (AFDRS) and grass fire risk, and future energy sources for agriculture.
Cricket fans were treated to a special stop on the ICC (international cricket Council) T20 Regional Road-show tour featuring 12 cricket experiences featuring a virtual reality experience of hitting a six at the SCG, sending a fan message to the players. Also included as a feature of the 12 stops was a local artist to create a piece of art at the event that represents the town the roadshow visited. Murrumbateman local pastel artist Amanda McLean was selected and onsite to create a masterpiece that will be permanently displayed at Cricket Council’s headquarters in Sydney.
All ticket sales moved to online only this year and were on sale from 25 August. With options to purchase before the event or on the day at the gate with a mobile phone or Eftpos, the majority of sales occurred from Wednesday onwards. The system ran relatively smoothly for a new system, ticket supplier and volunteers on the gates. Organisers hit a few glitches with reports that some SMS tickets weren’t received, but they could look tickets up by name at the gate and push through a ticket resend on Sunday morning. Saturday was affected by internet connectivity problems, an issue the Field Days has strived to address and ensure adequacy after the 2014 event where the infrastructure just did not meet the demand.
“Since 2015 we’ve hired a TelstraCOW (cell on wheels), and at great expense, to ensure the network can handle the additional load the Field Days brings to Murrumbateman. Unfortunately, the network was overloaded and just couldn’t handle the amount of traffic, even with our sponsor, YLess4U’s additional free wifi network.” explained Promotions Officer Briony Windsor.
“The guys from YLess4U were great; they stepped in to troubleshoot and tried to fix the problem on Saturday and brought more infrastructure on Sunday. We got the ATM’s connected directly to the network rather than 4G on Saturday afternoon and that sped them up. We beat the weather and the car parks but not the internet,” Briony said.
The weather was the most welcomed outcome of all! Threatened heavy rain, particularly in the fortnight leading up to the event, had Manager Tom White reviewing his plans daily in a delicate balance.
“The car parks were of great concern. We reviewed them with the RFS before and after each rain and hoped they would hold the expected visitor numbers. We improvised and planned to use locations we hadn’t previously, and with agreement from Murrumbateman Progress Association, we ran a free shuttle bus through Murrumbateman to limit local vehicles which was really well utilised and received by the village.”
“Overall, I’m really pleased with the field days return. To see the exhibitors arrive and set up, visitors come through the gate and all the volunteers and community groups support our event is special. The field days brings out the best in the community, and I really can’t thank everyone enough for that support,” Briony summed up.
