A throng of musicians, many from the Emerald Isle, will converge on Yass parks, pubs and coffee shops as the Turning Wave festival rolls into town.

A Celtic market will bring colour to Banjo Paterson Park; Joe O'Connor Park will become a temporary campground; and venues all over Yass will host gigs from experienced and budding musicians alike.

As organiser Judy Pinder explained, the whole town is transformed for the weekend.

"I remember either last year or the year before, a couple of the guys from 'Senor Cabrales' had come down for the festival and they were sitting outside Dolcetto and they were just playing tunes and people were going 'Oh look at the buskers' and I was saying 'No they're not actually buskers, they're just having their breakfast'," she said. 

"These guys will sit down and have breakfast and play tunes like you'd sit down and have breakfast and read the newspaper or do the crossword because that's just what they do.

"You won't be able to get away from it, there's going to be something on everywhere and people will think of them as busking but it's just the culture."

Over the three days (Friday to Sunday) celebrated musicians, bands, poets and dance groups will be performing at the Yass Memorial Hall, the Liberty Theatre, the Soldier's Club, Thyme To Taste, and St Augustines Old Lovatt Chapel. The headline act is Irish fiddler Trish Hastings, who has been flown over with sponsorship from the Irish consulate. She will be performing at the Memorial Hall on Friday night (9.40-10.10pm) and on Saturday at the Liberty Theatre (3.20-3.50pm).

There will also be dance workshops, poet's breakfasts, book launches and Ms Pinder's personal favourite the session trails.

"The fun bit is sitting around in the pubs playing with people because that's really where so many traditional musicians pick up their tunes and improve their technique," she enthused. 

"There's nothing that will do it for you like sitting and playing with somebody who's better than you and I'll certainly be heading for the sessions that'll be my reward for all this running around."

Ms Pinder, who sings and plays the bodhrán (Irish drum), was largely responsible for the festival moving to Yass from Gundagai.

"Word went around three years ago that they were looking for somewhere else to take the festival and I just thought Yass would be so perfect," she told the Tribune.

"So we nagged and managed to get the directors to come to Yass and have a look.  

"They loved the place because there are all these venues within two blocks, everything is within walking distance."

Through festival surveys and talking to the travellers she estimates that the festival would make close to $250,000 for the town.

"Visitors that come to town here spend close on 100 bucks a day per person. So we extrapolate from that, and that's not counting festival tickets, that's just accomodation, food, bits and bobs at the market and drinks that the weekend is probably worth about a quarter of a million dollars to the town, which would be about five times what the festival budget is."

Former president of the NSW Folk Federation, and member of the band 'Folk Lore' (which will be performing this weekend) Anthony Woolcott, said the success of the event stemmed from the brilliant local support.

"The atmosphere's great it's actually better than it was at Gundagai and Gundagai was excellent," he told the Tribune.

"The venues are great and the locals really welcome everyone. I mean Gundagai was a really special festival as well but this is two or three times better."

As an added bonus, Yass is the first folk festival of the 'season' so artists like Mr Woolcott "suffer withdrawal symptoms" and cannot wait to get back into it.

You can pick up a full program at the Yass Valley Visitor Information Centre and remember if you're enjoying your weekend latte and the table next to you breaks out in an Irish tune...they're probably not busking.