A duo lives in Corindi Beach, and for a village of a few streets between the highway and the surf that's a good start. The rest of the ten are Coffs Harbour's, half an hour south down the Pacific Highway, and it's an odd bench for a regional city: two fire performers, a comedian, a soul band, a blues band, a string quartet, a singer, a singer-songwriter and a function band. Red Rock, Arrawarra, Mullaway and Woolgoolga all sit inside the same circle and can read this page as their own.
Because Coffs supplies most of what's in reach, the villages north of it get the city's variety without much of a drive, and a fire show on the sand at Corindi after a wedding dinner is an easy booking rather than a stretch. The other direction is Grafton and Yamba, further and thinner, with Lismore behind them. Summer holidays fill the caravan parks from Woolgoolga to Red Rock and the local duo will be working through them, so a January date wants an early message.
Top picks are the nearby performers with the most visible reviews, then rating, then the closest; further afield the closest come first, and premium listings break remaining ties. Distances are straight-line from Corindi Beach. Ask each act whether they travel to your venue and what that costs.
The quartet is based at Coffs, so a Corindi ceremony adds a short highway run and not much else; what sets the price is how many players you book and how long they stay. Four for the ceremony alone is one figure, a trio playing through the canapes is another, and the from-price on the card is where the quartet starts. Shade for the instruments matters more than anything on a January afternoon here.
Send the date, the room and a line about who's in it, because the comic on this list writes to the crowd, and a fiftieth in a backyard at Corindi is a different set from a corporate dinner in Coffs. Ask how long a spot runs and whether they'll MC the rest of the night, which is the useful add-on. They're half an hour up the highway, so travel is small.
They do, and most treat the villages north of Woolgoolga as home turf rather than a trip, so a travel line on the quote should be small or absent. Red Rock is the furthest of them and the last stretch is a country road, so mention it. A late finish at a farm behind Corindi is the one thing that might add a little.
The afternoon nor'easter on this stretch flattens a small speaker by three o'clock. The Coffs string quartet and the singers all play outdoors, but ask what they bring, and think about the sheltered side of the headland.
A lot of the district's celebrations happen on farms behind Corindi and Woolgoolga, up dirt roads with no power at the ceremony spot. Tell the act it's a farm and they'll bring a battery rig or tell you they can't.
Yamba and Grafton appear in the wider pool but they're the best part of an hour up the highway, while Coffs is half that. Start south unless the venue is at Red Rock or beyond.