Thousands of people attended the various sessions over the three days of the festival, enjoying the unique experience of hearing a Carillon played live in the centre of a regional city.

The numbers might pale against powerhouse events like the Bathurst Winter Festival and Bathurst 1000 but this was always going to be something of a niche attraction.

What the crowd left in size, however, it made up for in affluence with the Festival of Bells naturally attracting a different demographic to the family-focused winter festival and sports-mad motor racing crowd.

And it may be a case of from little things big things grow as organisers seek to change and expand the Festival of Bells.

Importantly, we've seen the first instalment of what will hopefully become a fixture on the Bathurst calendar, one that can only add to the rich mix of life in our city.

At the same time, Bathurst Showground land manager Andrew Fletcher met with Bathurst Regional Council this week to explore ways the Bathurst Winter Festival could also be expanded.

The winter festival has been one of the great legacies to our city from the bicentenary celebrations in 2015 and has changed the way Bathurst thinks about the colder months.

The ice rink in Russell Street has been the focus of every festival (except last year's COVID-affected event) and has drawn literally thousands of families to Bathurst from right across the region - and its appeal has shown no signs of dipping as the years have gone on.

We hope to see the ice rink back again this year, along with other carnival rides in Russell Street, but Mr Fletcher believes the festival has outgrown that single location and needs to find other local venues to highlight.

That might be a challenge for organisers but should not be seen as a threat. Indeed, the continuing growth of the festival is a great credit to those who first proposed it.

Bathurst - in particular, Mount Panorama - has always been very good at drawing people to our region and we're only getting better at it as we explore new ways of growing that tourism pie. The Festival of Bells might be just a small slice of the pie, but it will prove to be a tasty morsel.

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