festival’s plans are progressing at last week’s Cobar Tourism Advisory Committee
meeting at the Cobar Bowling & Golf Club.
The Cobar Visitor Information Centre
(VIC) has been doing a roaring trade over
the past month with their visitor statistics
the best they’ve been for more than 10
years.
Since the beginning of January, visitor numbers
to Cobar have been climbing each month
with the VIC recording 3,326 visitors to the
centre in April and half of those have passed
through the museum.
Cobar Shire Council’s tourism manager
Demi Smith reported the visitor stats to last
week’s Tourism Advisory Committee meeting.
She said April’s figures have increased three
times on the March visitor figures and are a
record for the centre.
“It’s the equal best April month in history,
and compares with our last best April figures
in 2010,” Demi said.
She also reported on the completed upgrades
to the museum and also outlined the plans for
the next lot of work to be carried out.
Demi told the meeting the Cobar Sound
Chapel is attracting a lot of interest from a
wide demographic of visitors that have included
music lovers, architects and people with an
interest in seeing something unique.
A number have made the trip to Cobar specifically
to visit the Sound Chapel.
Discussion about upcoming festivals and
events was held at the meeting and included a
presentation by Running On Empty Festival
(ROEF) organiser John de Bruin.
Mr de Bruin outlined the plans for this year’s
event which he reports has created a lot of
interest from people who attended the last
event in 2018 and also from people who
missed out on the 2018 event.
John is hoping more locals will be involved
in the event this year.
“This event isn’t just for visitors, it’s also for
locals. We want locals to come along to the
bands night, the Show n Shine and come and
watch the movie,” he said.
A discussion was held about the pros and
cons of combining this year’s Festival of the
Miners Ghost, the Grey Mardi Gras and the
Cobar Yabbies Reunion on the same weekend.
Barry Knight spoke about the next community
project he is working on, a Poppy Remembrance
wall on the Open Cut fence which pays
tribute to the 600 miners from Cobar who
served as sappers in World War I.
