The festival will start tonight with late-night shopping in Gore, a children’s disco and then a glitzy country music honours night at the St James Theatre.
From then, it will be all systems go through to the Gold Guitar Awards next weekend, with record entries in what is its 50th year.
The awards celebrate all that is good with country music — a genre which has been enjoying a renaissance.
Gore Country Music Club president Julie Mitchell previously told the Otago Daily Times the awards had come a long way from the 33 entries when they first started.
This year, there were 829 entries, up 100 on last year.
She also acknowledged the boom in the genre worldwide as a catalyst for a rapidly increasing appetite for the festival.
NZ Gold Guitar Awards committee convener Phillip Geary said gradually over the past 10 years, and particularly in the last three or four, country music had skyrocketed — to the competition’s benefit.
In particular, he had noticed a "big increase" in the intermediate section, which covers the 13-18 age range.
The awards had changed their image over the years, he said.
"Originally it was ‘country and western’, and we deliberately keep the word ‘western’ out of it now," he said.
"Western just goes back to the cowboy image, I think."
The top award at tonight’s country music honours will be the Apra Best Country Music Song award.
The finalists are: 5432 written and performed by Mel Parsons; Blue Dreams written and performed by Holly Arrowsmith; and Borrow My Boots written and performed by Tami Neilson, Ashley McBryde and Shelly Fairchild, featuring Grace Bowers.
Parsons won the MLT Songwriting Award last year with Hardest Thing.
Neilson will perform tonight.
The big show tonight will start 10 days of entertainment. There will be a bit of everything on offer, including a cheese roll workshop, line dancing for beginners and busking for all ages.
