YOU don’t have to look far to find an ABBA fan but it’s safe to say some of their biggest are in Orange.
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Jayne Crew, Alison Ward, Merrilee Morgan and Rachel Baird won the best of the best in the category of fashions of the festival at the Trundle ABBA Festival.
The group was presented with the inaugural Celia Vild memorial trophy by the Swedish ambassador to Australia Par Ahlberger.
Celia Vild was a fan of the ABBA Festival who died in 2015.
Her family dedicated $300 to the festival to keep her memory alive each year.
Mrs Ward said her family and friends were surprised to hear about the group’s win.
“We sent it home on Facebook, everyone was bagging us out,” Mrs Ward said.
“I think they all thought we were joking when we said the Swedish ambassador was there. We’re stoked about it.”
Mrs Ward said this year was the first year the group entered the fashion parade.
“We dressed up the first weekend we went two years ago but didn’t get there in time to go in the parade,” she said.
“This year we thought we’d make an effort, get there earlier and up the ante for the competition.”
Mrs Ward said the group turned to the internet for costume inspiration.
“We went onto a costume website to find something that was ABBA-ish and we wanted to be matching,” she said.
“We had lots of people stopping us for pictures and saying we looked good.”
This year we thought we’d make an effort, get there earlier and up the ante for the competition.
- Alison Ward
The festival organisers welcomed about 6000 festival goers to the tiny town, just over 1000 more people than last year.
Among the many highlights was what the festival’s organisers have named the world record attempt of the most number of people dancing to ABBA’s Dancing Queen on Trundle’s main street.
This was followed by an announcement from parliamentary secretary for western NSW Richard Colless, attending on behalf of minister for tourism and major events Adam Marshall, announced on the main stage that Destination NSW will be funding $20,000 into the event to ensure it continues into the future.
The festival concluded with headline act Bjorn Again performing in spectacular fashion.
What made this year’s performance all the more special was that it had been exactly 28 years to the day Bjorn Again performed their first show in Melbourne.