About 25 local people are donating their time to make the festival happen. 

More than 100 school children from five schools are involved in the festival, which was resurrected two years ago when original founder Auntie Marg Adams encouraged executive director of community arts organisation Beyond Empathy Kim McConville to bring it back to facilitate healing in the community.

“The festival gives children opportunities and self-confidence to express their creativity in ways they wouldn’t have usually,” Jess Duncan, who is co-directing the project with Mathew Priestley, said.

Kim was overwhelmed by the generosity of the local community, from Kenneth Knox making soup, Amanda Haines cooking fried scones and Jillian Knox spending the weekend picking up children in a mini bus and taking them home.

Some of Australia’s best performers are in town to work with the local children, including Aboriginal singers David Leha and Thelma Plum and hip hop artists Jimblah and Spit Sydnicate, along with local singers Leetonna, Denis and Lamonay Pitt and Nate Weatherall.Visiting dancer B-Boy Yogi will collaborate with Shae Duncan, Steve Quinlan, Carmel Lardner and Gwenda Stanley and her son Nu’niwekima to choreograph traditional and contemporary dance pieces with the children.

Locals talking about the festival theme of heroes will have their responses projected on multiple screens, along with portraits of Moree children taken by prestigious photographer Raphaela Rosella.The festival is based on the Gomeroi story of how the brolga bird came into existence. 

A young girl who was dancing too far from the light of the fire, was captured and accidentally killed by an old man who she’d been promised to against her wishes. While no one could find the girl, an old woman later saw a brolga dancing in the same way.