While the region is still enjoying perfect autumn weather with blue skies and warm days, the 2019 Bathurst Winter Festival was officially launched on Wednesday.

This will be the fifth year of the festival that started as a bicentenary project in 2015 and it's sure to again prove a popular attraction for our city.

And it also plays an important role in putting a smiling on the faces of locals during winter.

Where previously Bathurst residents were happy to remain indoors through the coldest months of the year, rugged up in front of the fire, the Bathurst Winter Festival has managed to draw us out.

The two biggest events of the festival - Ignite the Night on Saturday, July 6 and Brew & Bite on Saturday, July 13 - will bring thousands of people into the Bathurst CBD, sparking life and a sense of community unheard of in winters gone by.

But they are just two nights out of a two-week program. The festival has much more to offer than that.

The McDonald's Ice Rink on Russell Street will again be the most popular attraction with dozens of people on the ice every hour from early morning to late evening across every day of the festival.

The ferris wheel is also returning along with the two-storey carousel while the Illuminations project will again see some of Bathurst's most iconic buildings lit up at night.

This year's Illuminations will include installations at the court house, along Court House Lane, inside the Machattie Park fernery, on the Catholic Cathedral and along Keppel Street.

But the question that organisers are left asking every year will be, is that enough?

The winter festival has been an unquestioned success and is one of the great legacies of Bathurst's bicentennial year.

But the challenge each year is to find something new to surprise and delight the festivalgoers.

We'll have to wait and see if the festival can do that this year.

We love the look of what's on offer in 2019 but wonder if we've seen it all before. And, if that is the case, can we afford to make the same offering again in 2020?

Time will tell but, until then, let's start getting excited. Anything to brighten a Bathurst winter deserves support from all of us.