Whether you're a soldier or whether you're a steampunk, you're stayin' alive as the once-cancelled Ironfest makes a triumphant return to the region in 2024.
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President of Ironfest Inc. Macgregor Ross told the Lithgow Mercury in December 2022 the festival was "over" after it failed to recover from financial losses due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
The popular festival has re-emerged in the slightly different form of a free expo at a new home with the Portland Foundations.
Mr Ross said Ironfest in 2024 will see the event go back to its beginnings in order to pave a way forward.
"The idea of an expo was to go back to square one, which was the reason why I started Ironfest," Mr Ross said.
"It was about bringing people to Lithgow to buy quality art and metal of all kinds."
Despite the smaller scale of the event, there will still be plenty of entertainment and stalls that attendees have enjoyed in previous years- including past favourite musicians Riccardo and Nick.
"They used to come to Ironfest, She had the hurdy gurdy. They would be playing medieval tunes," Mr Ross said.
"They're actually going to do a 70s electronic sort of performance. That'll be quite cute."
According to Mr Ross, LARP (Live-action role play) will be a highlight of the day due to its increasing popularity in the region and beyond.
"We've got a whole heap of larpers coming. That'll be the big new element, Larp is taking off in Lithgow," Mr Ross said.
"I think that's where our future is."
There will also be wrestlers, Historic reenactment groups, A boffer sword maker and fencers.
"It's sort of like a microcosm of everything we have," Mr Ross said.
There will be some things that avid Ironfest fans will notice are missing from the festival, which include some of bigger elements of past events.
"We won't have the large scale reenactments, and they won't be the cannons, those big battles, no jousting, and probably no birds of prey," Mr Ross said.
Ironfest hasn't been held since 2019 and was on the brink of no return. For Mr Ross the time that has elapsed has felt like a death and rebirth for the festival to take a new form and direction.
"The beautiful thing about this is it's a restart. We can choose what direction we go," Mr Ross said.
"I would like to see it go into a more artistic direction. Less historic, more artistic."
The theme for Ironfest this year is 'Staying alive' to mark its rebirth and hope the almost 25 year old event can continue well into the future.
"I'm stubborn. I couldn't say die. And even though I really didn't think anything would come of it. It has," Mr Ross said.
"Staying alive was an aspiration, rather than "hopefully We'll stay alive," It's a rebirth."
"It's going to be something different. It's definitely not going to be the same. And that's good, because we all have to change."
Reidun Berntsen
Reidun is a Journalist and writer who lives in a country town 3 hours from Sydney, Australia. From a young age, Reidun has been in love with words and the infinite possibilities they bring. Stories, features and poems have been a major part of her writing career.
Reidun is a Journalist and writer who lives in a country town 3 hours from Sydney, Australia. From a young age, Reidun has been in love with words and the infinite possibilities they bring. Stories, features and poems have been a major part of her writing career.
