Jimboomba musician Jessica Holbrok wasn’t sure she’d make it to Tamworth’s country music festival this year.
She ended up winning the festival’s Battle of the Buskers competition, ahead of hundreds of musicians
In December last year, the festival, which took place from 16 to 25 January, gave Ms Holbrok a grant of $1000 to cover the costs of attending.
“It’s the very first year the festival did it,” she said. “They were giving $1,000 out to 25 artists, and I got the email in early December saying I’d got the bursary,” she said.
“And I went, ‘Oh no, I don’t have any gigs booked.’
In two weeks, Ms Holbrok was booked to perform 14 gigs at the festival, with some help from Tamworth’s council.
“I’ve been singing since I could talk,” Ms Holbrok said. “My mum said I was always singing around the house as a child, and I’ve been playing guitar since I was nine.
“I’ve been playing professionally for about 10 years, but music’s always been a love of mine.”
Some of Ms Holbrok’s early influences in her own music were Katy Perry and Taylor Swift.
“I started off singing pop music, but then I definitely found my country roots, and found that was where I belonged in the music genre.”
In April 2022, Ms Holbrok drove down to the Tamworth Country Music Festival with her partner; it was the first time she’d been.
“I only did one busking gig to see what it was like and test the waters,” she said.
“After that, it’s quite hard to afford driving down from Logan, paying for accommodation, and getting time off work as well, so I couldn’t really afford it.”
At this year’s festival, Ms Holbrok was one of 469 buskers registered to perform at the festival and was automatically entered in the festival’s Battle of the Buskers competition.
“You get given a little QR code and a busking number, and if the audience watching like you, they can scan your code and vote for you,” Ms Holbrok said.
“That gives the judges an idea about which performers are popular.”
Unknown festival judges also watch the buskers perform, eventually picking a winner from a shortlist of 10.
The battle’s winner would get a $2000 cash prize, two paid gigs at next year’s festival, and a new Pratley guitar valued at $3000.
“When I saw that there was a really good guitar, I thought ‘That’d be a dream come true to win,” Ms Holbrok said.
Ms Holbrok was crowned the winner and said the new guitar would improve the quality of her music.
“I have a new single coming out in March, it’s called Heartbreak Cowboy, so the money is going to help me get the song out there,” she said.
“And I’m going to use some of it to record a new song as well, I want to make an EP, so that’ll help.”
Ms Holbrok performed at last year’s flame and country music festivals in Logan and hopes to line up more performances this year.
