This pin marks the Big Thing itself. If stopping, choose a safe and legal place nearby.
Site-level location · 31.1273° S, 150.9233° E
FIELD GUIDE
The story
Slim Dusty unveiled it in 1988, which is about as authoritative a christening as an Australian country music monument can receive.
The Big Golden Guitar is a twelve-metre replica of the Golden Guitar Award – the trophy given at the Tamworth Country Music Awards, the most significant prize in the genre in this country – and it stands at the city's southern entrance at 2 The Ringers Road.
Replicating a trophy rather than an instrument is the clever decision. A giant guitar would say music. A giant Golden Guitar says this specific award, this specific festival, this specific town – and anyone who cares about Australian country music recognises the shape immediately.
Tamworth's claim is unusually solid. The Country Music Festival has run since 1973 and draws enormous crowds each January, effectively doubling the city's population for a fortnight, and the town has built genuine national standing on it. This is not a district inventing an identity; it is one confirming an existing one.
Slim Dusty is the correct person to have done the unveiling. He won more Golden Guitars than anyone, sold more records than any Australian artist of his era, and is as close to a founding figure as the genre has here.
The landmark is illuminated and available for exterior photographs twenty-four hours a day, with the visitor centre operating separately – so the object itself is genuinely free and always accessible.
Australia's other giant guitars are at Narrandera, playable and made of plywood, and in New Zealand at Gore.
Photograph
This is a photograph, shown separately from the illustration artwork.
Current NSW Government, Destination NSW and Tamworth Regional Council material confirms the landmark at 2 The Ringers Road. It is illuminated and available for exterior photographs 24 hours a day, with the visitor centre operating separately.
ACCESS
The Big Golden Guitar and Tamworth Visitor Information Centre share the visitor precinct at 2 The Ringers Road. NSW Government’s current attraction map fixes the site at this point and confirms car and coach parking. Navigate to the visitor precinct and use the onsite parking.
