Now in its sixth year, the festival has transformed from an Indigienous celebration into a multicultural event that encompasses music, sport and a general feeling of community.

Peter Gibbs, who is part of the Red Ochre organising committee, said Victoria Park would come alive for the day.

“We want to use the entire precinct and make it a massive event,” Mr Gibbs said.

“Our music program in particular is something special and we will have the skate park going as well as a football knockout.”

Mr Gibbs said the organising committee was keen to make the Red Ochre Festival a community event similar to the jazz festival or Tamworth’s Country Music Festival.

“We really want to foster and encourage the entire community to attend,” he said.

Mr Gibbs said last year there was a large number of people attending and until the organisers started expanding the idea he didn’t know Dubbo had such a large population of people from the Pacific islands.

While expanding its horizons, Mr Gibbs said the festival was sticking to its roots in a number of respects.

He said the bulk of the music would be provided by Indigenous performers but there would be some special performances.

“Bruno and Jo Efoti from the Tongan community will perform and we also have David Haluk and his band from West Papua,” Mr Gibbs said. “Apparently in his home country David is a widely known musician. Here in Dubbo he works at the meatworks and does some work as a security guard.

“Apart from that, Uncle John Hill is also going to play music and he has been an integral part of the festival. That is the kind of mix we are talking about for this year’s festival.”

ben.walker@ruralpress.com