Up to 50,000 people are boot-scooting their way to Tamworth for the annual country music pilgrimage that more than doubles the city's population.
Think of the New England centre and you immediately picture cowboy hats and line-dancing.
The first day of the Country Music Festival on Friday lived up to that image.
Shop fronts were transformed into stages for hopeful buskers performing to thousands of country music buffs in the main street.
One group of buskers added boot-scooting moves to their traditional performance.
Oversized cowboy hats were the fashion item of choice for revellers, blocking out the scorching summer sun.
Country ballads, with their unmistakable twang, could be heard blocks away as the whole town got into the swing of things.
But there's far more to the festival than the country-bumpkin stereotype.
Now in its 37th year, the festival transforms Tamworth, in north-west NSW, with 50,000 people from around the nation and overseas visiting each year.
Organisers say it also injects at least $50 million into the local economy.
About half a million litres of beer is consumed each year.
Over 11 days there will be 800 artists, 4,000 performances, and more than 2,000 events, including rodeos and talent quests.
Thousands of tickets have been sold for the 45 concerts during the festival, including for Graeme Connors, John Williamson and Beccy Cole, Sara Storer and Gina Jeffreys' collaborative performance The Songbirds.
Country music fans Del Connolly and John Hastie travelled more than 2,000 kilometres from far north Queensland for the event.
"It just brings in so many people and it's a wonderful atmosphere," Mrs Connolly said.
Mr Hastie, an avid Sara Storer and Troy Cassar-Daley fan, came to Tamworth for the festival about a decade ago and knows the four-day interstate trip will be worth it.
"We're not expecting it to be exciting - we know it will be exciting," Mr Hastie said.
"There's enough for us to see and do just here on the main street."
Country music's biggest stars will be honoured with Golden Guitars at the Country Music Awards on Saturday, January 24.
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