The two-day carnival will be held on January 5 to 6 at the Barden Park athletics complex, with events catering for athletes ranging in age from under-6s to over-80s.

Dubbo Athletics Club president David Williams said planning for the carnival is on track, however, with final entries not confirmed just yet the small but enthusiastic organising committee is getting itself ready for the business part of the preparations. "Traditionally our entries come in late. We have a few already but those last few days before the entries close are always the busiest," Williams, who is also vice-chairman of Dubbo Combined Athletics, said.

"The zone carnival was held at Coonamble on December 8 to 9 then the focus will be on Dubbo.

"Our carnival is a timed event so every event is run at a particular time but we can't put the program together until we have all the entries so our aim is to have the program complete by Christmas, enjoy some family time and then get going from just after new year with the final part of preparations."

This year the club attracted 320 entries for the event and Williams said he and his committee were keen to keep that number going in an upward spiral.

"We've had a steady increase in competitors over the past two or three years, which has been good," he said. "Our goal is to at least the 320 we had for the last carnival, if not improve on that number again."

Meanwhile, a planned upgrade of the Barden Park complex is moving forward with tenders for the design currently being sought.

William said the project is scheduled to start in June of next year.

"From what we've been told the timeframe to start is next June and all being well it would be finished by June of 2014 which is very exciting," he said.