Festival Grows Brighter

Lee Watts and Jan Kelaher with new Horse Festival merchandise

NEW banners will adorn the main street and the town will be painted Rio for this year’s Scone and Upper Hunter Horse Festival.

Lee Watts, president of the Scone and Upper Hunter Horse Festival said the Festival’s future is looking brighter than ever thanks to a hard working committee and strong community support.

“We haven’t stopped since last year, we’ve been meeting, developing new ideas and working with the community to ensure this years’ festival will be bigger and better,” said Mrs Watts.

“The theme for this year will be Horses go to Rio and we want lots of colour and fun surrounding the festival,’ she said.

“We are designing banners for the main street and will run a competition for window dressing with local businesses.

“The bumper stickers are ready so people can drop into the Neighbourhood Centre or Visitors Information Centre to pick some up and get them on their cars,” she said.

“We will be spotting cars with stickers and giving away polo shirts again this year and we have a range of colours in the polo shirts,” Lee Watts said.

The financial position of the Festival improved last year, some key sponsors have already given their support again this year and there is still plenty of opportunity for new sponsors to get involved.

“Inglis is back on board for the Calcutta, which is great, they really run a very professional evening and I’d encourage anyone who hasn’t been to a Calcutta to come along and see what it is all about,” said Mrs Watts.

“The Scone Equine Hospital will again sponsor the Street Parade, which is the most popular event of the festival,” she said.

“The Sportie’s and the RSL are back on board, with the Sportie’s hosting the Calcutta and Festival Ball, while the RSL is hosting the Yarn’s Night.

“The Festival Ball is sponsored by the Australian Stockhorse Society and is a great community night out.

“There are not many opportunities to get dressed up with friends and go out and this year we can inject some more colour with the Rio theme,” Lee Watts said.

This year’s festival has been condensed into ten days instead of 14, to ensure each day has activities people can enjoy.

“We decided it was better to have a condensed festival and make sure there was something people could go to each day,” said Lee Watts.

“We’ll also have an Equine Festival Drive so that people can get in their cars and explore the Upper Hunter with its equine highlights,” she said.

“There will be maps at the Neighbourhood Centre and the Visitor Information Centre and we’ll also link to it online.

“Last year we introduced the tent pegger and farriers to the event, which was a great outing for families.

“We have put up plenty of barriers, so that families can visit the tent pegging and farriers for free, without having to pay to go to the rodeo.

“The Scone Rodeo and Scone Cup are privately operated events, so the Festival does not gain any income from them, but they are great to have during the festival attracting lots of visitors and plenty of fun,” she said.

“We try to keep many of the horse festival events free for families to attend, so sponsorship is a huge help and a great way for local businesses to give back to support their local community,” Lee Watts said.

The Scone and Upper Hunter Horse Festival will be held from May 5 – May 15.