THIS year’s Autumn Festival at Armidale will feature exciting new elements with the inclusion of New England Heritage Festival highlights, showcasing lost trades and heritage skills.

Visitors can enjoy fascinating demonstrations such as blacksmithing, leatherwork, and lacemaking, alongside displays of antique trucks and machinery.

A major attraction will be Councillor Rob Taber’s antique steam traction engine, which will once again take centre stage in the lively Autumn Festival Parade.

Also featured will be the New England Antique Machinery Club’s working threshing machine, giving younger generations the chance to see early agricultural innovation in action.

This iconic 18th‑century invention, designed by Andrew Meikle around 1786, mechanised the once‑manual task of separating grain from stalks and husks.

This year’s Autumn Festival at Armidale will include New England Heritage Festival highlights, showcasing lost trades and heritage skills.

Using rotating drums to beat and clean harvested crops, the thresher helped transform farming practices before eventually being replaced by modern combine harvesters.

Armidale Regional Council’s Autumn Festival 2026 will be held on Saturday, 21 March, offering a vibrant celebration of community, colour, and all things autumn.

“It’s great to see the introduction of lost trades exhibitions at this year’s Autumn Festival,” Cr Taber said.

“We’re excited about introducing an entirely new audience to antique machinery and the heritage skills of our area’s past.

“Combining elements of the New England Heritage Festival into one of Armidale’s biggest and most popular events adds an extra dimension and will hopefully inspire a new generation to appreciate the joys of antique machinery and heritage displays.”

The Autumn Festival is one of Armidale’s most beloved events, attracting thousands of visitors and participants each year.

With a colourful street parade, live entertainment, food stalls, and now heritage demonstrations, 2026 is set to be one of the biggest and most diverse festivals yet.

To further showcase the region’s heritage, the festival will also feature a diverse range of specialist exhibitors and demonstrations, Armidale Historical Society’s objects, period costumes and family history displays, live demonstrations and sales by a lacemaker and leather maker, and intricate craft displays from a working clockmaker.