Organiser Sal Molesworth said while the number of stallholders climbs steadily, there has been a big lift in the number of visitors.

“The visitation just blew us away,” she said.

“It was strongly supported by both visitors and locals.”

She said the wristband initiative to identify those visiting town for the festival and participating locals was good in concept, but more volunteers were needed to distribute the wristbands and to encourage people to wear them throughout the weekend.

Local wristband wearer Paula Staples took home the turquoise pendant in the lucky draw at the Glen Innes and District Services Club on Saturday afternoon, but the visitors’ $300 9ct gold studs with green sapphires is so far unclaimed. The winning number was 82169, and the bearer of a wristband with that number can claim the earrings.

Ms Molesworth said she received excellent feedback from stallholders, and it was good to see those that had participated in earlier Mineramas starting to return.

“It’s building momentum,” she said.

“The event still has a lot of potential, and a lot more space to expand on King George Oval.”

People came from southern Queensland and the coast to attend, along with travellers from Western Australia and South Australia who built the event into their itinerary. Accommodation bookings were very solid for caravan parks and cabins, with local motels also reporting good occupancy rates over the weekend.

“People come to look and buy and to fossick, but people in the gem and jewellery business also come to buy stock,” Ms Molesworth said.

 “There was one guy there with a huge trailer-full of rocks, and people buy them to make beads. Everything’s there from the raw materials right through to the finished products.”

Ms Molesworth said the field trips were well patronised. Several big finds were brought back from the trips, including a large 25.5ct zircon found at Yarrow Creek by Steve Rees visiting from McLeans Ridges, and a 12.3ct blue sapphire found at Lonewood by Pam and Les Todkill of Manly West in Queensland.

Field trip organiser Les Beeching put a rough value of around $700 on the sapphire and $500-600 on the zircon, and said there were many other finds of 2-3ct zircon and sapphire stones uncovered throughout the field trips.

He said it was good fossicking weather, and the bigger finds were uncovered by panning alluvial soils along creeks.

He guided 70 keen fossickers on one of the family fossicking trips to his property Boolabinda, including a busload of 21 students from the Steiner School in Armidale along with other families.

They were treated to a demonstration of traditional fossicking methods before putting their own luck to the test at a nearby creek.  

“There are definitely stones out there,” Mr Beeching said.

“You just have to be very lucky, or do a lot of work.”

It was a busy weekend in Glen Innes with Men At Glen running concurrently at the Glen Innes Showground (see Thursday’s paper for details). Ms Molesworth said several attended both events, having a synergistic effect on bringing tourism to the area.