Ideas include spreading the Festival over two days and attracting enthusiasts from Sydney via train.

Festival organisers were rapt their first attempt gained plenty of community support and attracted visitors from across the east coast of NSW including Newcastle and Batemans Bay. The event also drew crowd members from nearby Mudgee and Bathurst.

Organiser Mary Kavanagh said rural towns needed annual events to help promote their patch.

“Bob Marley was someone we knew could be shared across entire generations and I think the crowd reflects that today,” she said.

“You have your hipsters, young parents dancing with their children and some older generations just sitting back and enjoying the show.

“When you mention his name people seem to smile. Bob Marley brings a different culture to Kandos and some have come to see what that culture is all about.”  

Fellow organiser Sue Honeysett said Bob Marley was a character the festival could build on.

“As Mary said, Bob Marley is someone who is accessible across a lot of generations,” she said.

Mrs Honeysett drove up and down the coast and through the Hunter and the Blue Mountains, pasting up posters to promote the event.

Both Sue and Mary took to the live stage during the afternoon to thank Kandos for their support as well as all the events sponsors.

Speaking before main musical act Carribean Soul took to the stage, Mrs Honeysett expected them to “shake the crowd up”.

Guests were not disappointed. Those not familiar with reggae were taught an immediate lesson on when Carribean Soul front man and entertainer Errol H. Renaud took to the stage.

“I want to see plenty of skank and bubble, that’s what the great man Robert Nesta Marley was all about,” Renaud said in his opening.

(“Skank” and “bubble”  are terms to describe how guitars and keyboards  are used to create reggae’s distinctive beat and sound). 

Renaud led his band through some of Bob Marley’s famous hits and other reggae pieces.

Carribean Soul led a foray of live music throughout the afternoon in front of Kandos’ Down the Tack cafe.

Local bands performed from midday including impressive all-girl band Random FX, Kings of Congo Congo, and Fig Jam.  

Visitors were also treated to background reggae music, Jamaican food and a thoroughfare of market stalls. 

A reggae tribute show was also played on Kandos’ community radio station (KRR 98.7fm) in the hours leading up to Saturday’s event.