Ms Landreth lives in Kabul, Afghanistan. An American citizen from South Carolina, she fixes computers for US special forces. She has worked in the war-scarred country for nearly nine years and is currently based in Bagram air base.

She came to Glen Innes in 2018 for the Outlandish festival, her first trip to Australia. Her housemate at home is Irish.

She never thought she'd have a personal connection with a town she'd never before heard of.

"I think it's a neat little place," she said.

The 2019 festival is clearly one of the biggest ones in recent memory, as predicted, though numbers have yet to be finalised. Thousands traveled from across NSW and Australia, from Wales and from further afield for the occasion, a reminder of the significance Celtic heritage continues to have to those with Scots, Welsh, Irish and other backgrounds.

It rained on the biggest parade of the year for Glen Innes on Saturday morning; a number of grandees noted that it was "Scottish weather" for the Scottish-themed Celtic festival. And yet nobody complained about the moderate wet.

Scottish folk singer Iona Fyfe even said she found Glen Innes unusually cold for the weekend. A bitterly cold wind cut into the hundreds of punters who attended her pre-dawn performance for the flag raising and lighting of the cauldron at the hill overlooking the Australian standing stones.

The stones will soon not be unique. Brisbane plans to construct its own version of the stones, which date to 1991/1992. The stones will remain the only national Celtic monument. Suzanne Jamieson, of the Celtic Council of Australia, said the Queensland committee had raised $100,000 to construct "rival stones" at the Roma street parkland in Brisbane, which are set to open later this year.

"I think (they) may have set off a bit of a bushfire," said Ms Jamieson, tongue firmly in cheek.

"Because all the other states will want their own mini-stones.

"They won't be as grand as (the Glen Innes stones) so don't worry.

"But it is a testament to what amateurs and volunteers can do. It's a very great job to raise $100,000, that's a lot of lamington days."

The Celtic music awards were judged on Saturday night. Gone Molly is the 2019 Celtic group of the year, with Ella Roberts the female and Pixie Jenkins the male Celtic artists of the year. Ms Roberts also won the overall Celtic artist of the year prize.

The festival ended this afternoon.