Mudgeeque - a portmanteau of Mudgee and barbecue is the name of the inaugural event that brings local brewers, winemakers, distillers, musicians and of course, smoked meats together in one location for a single night in Mudgee.

Speaking with the creator and Chair of 'Mudgeeque', Ray Whitfield, he says the idea for the event came to him on an overseas trip last year.

"I was standing on a tube platform in London and saw a very big poster advertising the world's greatest barbecue to be held at a stately home in England," Ray said.

"They were flying in world champion barbecuers from all over the world, and I thought, that's a good idea, we could do that,"

"So and it struck me that it might be a good idea for us to do it in the wintertime because the whole thing with barbecues is the hot food and then you've got fire pits and lights and all that,"

Before Mudgeeque could begin, Mudgee's own 'stately home' had to be found.

"What we wanted was - like the poster mentioned, a stately home. We looked at about three or four heritage houses on nice properties but in the end we selected Melrose Park," Ray said.

"We chose Melrose Park because of the facilities they've got there. They've got paddocks for parking, they've got paddocks for event to be held, they've got a cow shed, they've got power and it has that real country feeling we wanted."

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Tickets have already sold out before the event, with numbers capped at 1500 attendees, 500 more than originally planned.

"The reason we cap the number is we're putting on buses and we don't want people who are waiting for the bus to wait an hour. We're putting on food and we're doing calculations on how many servings they will do so that people don't have to wait too long to be served," Ray said.

Ray says that roughly two thirds of the ticket sales have been from outside visitors.

"The whole point was exactly this. If we can run an event that can attract visitors in what is normally a quiet time and it's a success then yes, we will do it again," Ray said

"Mudgee's getting a good reputation for events. so you assume if you put on a good 'attractive' event then hopefully you can attract people to come here. That's the logic behind it."

Mudgeecue is on Saturday, June 1 at Melrose Park.

For more information, head to the official Facebook page.