Forbes Sport and Recreation Club manager Norm Cook says he was impressed by the turnout at the first ever ‘All Roads Lead Back to Forbes’ event. Around 500 people from across Australia, including Queensland, northern NSW and Tasmania, came back to their hometown of Forbes to celebrate the event held between Friday January 22 and Sunday January 24.
Mr Cook, who coordinated the event, said he hoped it would be just as big when it runs again in two years time. “It was a magnificent success. We were talking about one for next year but that probably won’t happen, it’ll probably be two years down the track.” “We had a lot of people come from the Gold Coast, as well as from the NSW coast like Coffs Harbour, Ballina and Sydney, and as far south as Batemans Bay, Albury and Wagga.”
The event was organised with the purpose of reuniting current and former Forbes residents, with Facebook being the main mode of communication to invite people to the event.
“Social media played a big part. There’s a Facebook page called ‘We come from Forbes and we’re proud of it’, so that was obviously the main thing,” he said. The three-day event involved a meet and greet on the Friday night, live entertainment and the official reunion on the Saturday night, and a BBQ brunch on the Sunday morning.
The two main bands, the ‘Echoettes’ and ‘Freight’ were a highlight on the Saturday night, with both groups playing music from the 1970s including the Bee Gees, The Shadows and Creedence Clearwater Revival. Mr Cook said the band members were reuniting on a musical level just as everyone else was reuniting on a social level.
“These bands played in Forbes pubs back in the 70s, so that was the original idea, to get all the boys back together, and all of the original members were there,” he said. Mr Cook said the auctions originally planned were not able to take place, but will be run at a later date by the Forbes Diggers Swimming Club with proceeds going to the soon-to-be established Prostate Awareness Committee, to be based in Forbes from February.