THE inaugural Wauchope Country Music Festival, set down for 9-11 January next year, looks like being a truly international affair with one of Ireland’s top recording stars, Louise Morrissey, booked to perform. She’ll be headlining her one and only show here for the festival at the Wauchope RSL on Saturday night, January 10, and looking forward to meeting her many fans on the mid-north coast.

Louise has long been one of Ireland's best loved singers and entertainers. She has achieved great success in both Ireland and the UK, and has brought her easy style of country and folk to many other countries, including the USA, Canada, Europe and the Middle East. She has also toured the UK with Charlie Pride, Foster & Allen, and Dominic Kirwan.

An all round entertainer, Louise and her band visited the Lebanon in 1994, where they entertained the Irish UN Peacekeeping troops.

Festival president, David Reneke, said there has been a lot of interest shown so far in the festival with enquiries coming from all over NSW, and quite a few from interstate. We’ve already selected most of the artists for the three days the festival will be running and along with some of Australia’s top name stars, they include quite a few local performers as well.

Most interest in the festival, from the business community, has come from Port Macquarie so far but the committee are hopeful Wauchope businesses will see the incredible advantages it will generate not only in tourism dollars, but for all sectors of our community, and come on board.

“I’m really proud of the committee we have,” David said.

“We have talented people involved who are not only fully focussed on making this festival one of the best events of its type in the country, they’re also totally committed in promoting the Hastings to the many tourists looking at making Wauchope a stop-over on their way to the Tamworth Country Music Festival in the new year.”

With the festival still in the planning stages, the committee are already looking further ahead. Successive years will see the incorporation of the ‘Timbertown Muster’ – a new concept in family entertainment showcasing Australian bush and country music at the Timbertown Theme Park, Wauchope. “We’ll cater for all facets of country music,” David said.

Wauchope CBD will be abuzz for the entire event with local and visiting performers in town each day adding to the overall ambience the festival will generate. The festival is expected to become a major event on the popular Australian country music calendar each year

With the Wauchope Country Music Festival being a non-profit event, all monies generated will go straight back into the local community.

If you can help with donations, or you are a business interested in sponsoring a major event or artist, then the organisers would like to hear from you.

Please phone Debbie Jones on 0411 208 867 or Joy Lewis on 6585-1499 for more information.