The Festival of the Mullet

It was quiet up front and a party in the back in one Australian town.

A mining town of 6,000 half an hour west of Newcastle in New South Wales’ Hunter Valley, Kurri Kurri has been searching for the magic formula other regional towns have hit on to draw in tourists and reinvigorate its economy. Since 1993 Parkes has had the Elvis festival; Trundle, a minuscule town an hour west, struck gold in 2012 with the Abba festival. Deniliquin in the state’s south-west has reaped the benefits of the Deni Ute Muster since 1999.

The Chelmsford hotel’s owner and local hairdresser, Laura Johnson, hit on the idea of a festival celebrating Australia’s most loved and loathed hairstyle – long at the back, short at the top and sides – while brainstorming with a friend and co-organiser, Sarah Bedford. “Aussies love an icon,” she says. “We have so many mullets in town, and in my family. My father-in-law had one for 60 years.”