Orange 360's Caddie D'Onise fans the flames for district's Winter Fire Festival

Despite the late decision to extend the festival to nine days from its original three, and the falling of over 50mm of rain and hail during its duration, the Winter Fire Festival achieved its goal of bringing visitors to Orange in the district's second softest month for tourism behind February.

It also had some success in luring winter-weary locals out of their loungerooms to share in an array of events in the Orange360 area.

Originally slated for August 5 to 7, the securing of a $220,000 grant from NSW Government's Reconnecting Regional NSW Community Events Program led to the festival extension to August 13.

Orange360s general manager Caddie D'Onise said the funding's announcement in June brought about some quick thinking from the organisation and its members, with just two months to prepare.

"Our members rallied really quickly which was fantastic and it has been fantastic," she said.

"Orange City Council events team have worked hard to deliver it but it just didn't give us enough time into the marketing of it. We didn't have the collateral because we actually didn't know if was going to be approved."

The Winter Fire Festival was staged largely in Robertson Park in Orange around a central spiegeltent, 'The Kazador' which featured live, ticketed shows, the majority of which were free and generally well-attended, including the shows where entry was charged.

Fire pits, the temporary Cafe de Rude and other outdoor entertainment were held in conjunction.

"We've all dug deep in a really short period and those events at the Kazador Tent ...have been really well received by the public," Ms D'Onise said.

"Even [Saturday] night, people walking through the sludge, I'm dreading to hear what the parks team will say, but it was so well-received.

"There were people there from out of town, there were girls there still milling around Cafe de Rude ... they were up from Merimbula and they were just blown away by how much there was to do and how vibrant Orange is."

Ms D'Onise said feedback would be collated before deciding on the length and format of next year's Winter Fire Festival, or whether events in the park would return.

"It is going to take a bold investment to be able to bring it back but that's where it would be great to hear what the community thinks - do you want us to do this again, do you want us to make this a 10-day festival where we can bring in performance but really bring in some of that local performance like the tent takeover on the Tuesday night."

Orange360 will now look ahead to the Orange Wine Festival starting on September 30.

"The reason why we do these festivals is to anchor each season, so we can talk about the season in all of our destination marketing and say well you've seen it, so now why don't you come? And we're very quickly into Orange wine month and there's strong website traffic and tickets are going well."

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