To some, it is the hairstyle that time forgot. To others it is worn as a badge of non-conformity.

Today the title of The Greatest Mullet of All will be bestowed upon one of 154 registered entrants at Mulletfest, the newest and strangest regional event in New South Wales.

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Mulletfest is the brainchild of hotel publican Laura Johnson, from Kurri Kurri in the New South Wales Hunter Valley

The festival was conceived only six months ago around a table in the front bar of the Chelmsford Hotel, a pub Ms Johnson runs where most patrons wear a mullet with pride.

"We were actually sitting around the Table of Knowledge in the front bar," she said.

"Talking about things we could do to save the pub, and things we could create to be good news stories and bring some people to the town."

School friend Sarah Bedford suggested a mullet festival, and the publican ran with it, engaging a Hunter Valley-based publicist to spread the word.

In the past three weeks news of the event has been picked up by media outlets around the world.

Ms Johnson has conducted interviews about the event for outlets in North America, the United Kingdom, Canada and New Zealand.

Entrants are travelling from New Zealand, the Northern Territory, Victoria, and from around New South Wales.

Sam Hugo, a farmhand from Narrabri in north-west NSW, has travelled to Kurri Kurri to enter Mulletfest. ( ABC Newcastle: Anthony Scully )

Organisers hope festival will provide financial boost

In 2012 Kurri Kurri lost its largest employer, an aluminium smelter that employed 400 people — or 10 per cent of the town's population of 4,000.

Since then the town's main street has lost a pub, a workers' club, a butcher, a hairdresser and other retail stores, as the local economy has stagnated.

"You can imagine if those kinds of jobs are getting cut it really has a massive economic effect," Ms Johnson said.

Laura Johnson is the organiser of Australia's newest regional festival, Mulletfest. ( ABC Newcastle: Anthony Scully )

"Our town has really struggled … there's no business in the town that is immune to that kind of financial hardship."

In efforts to set itself apart from Pokolbin, home to the famous Hunter Valley vineyards, Kurri Kurri has pinned its hopes on the tourist dollar.

It has an annual Kurri Kurri Nostalgia Festival in March, featuring attractions such as a car show, rockabilly themed entertainment and markets.

And it also has a year-round attraction in the form of 60 outdoor public murals depicting the history and heritage of the region.

Festival shows another side of Kurri Kurri

Bob Craig says, "You've got the murals, you've got the Nostalgia Festival and stuff like that, but this will be something different." ( ABC Newcastle: Anthony Scully )

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Kurri Kurri mechanic and Mulletfest entrant Bob Craig hopes the festival will show another side of what the town has to offer.

"It will wake up a lot of people I think, just to get here and see what's going on," he said.

"You've got the murals, you've got nostalgia and stuff like that, but this will be something different, and it should be good."

One of those who heard about the festival via the media buzz is 24-year-old farmhand Sam Hugo, from the north-west NSW town of Narrabri.

"I heard about it on Facebook and on the news, so I thought I'd come down and join in," he said.

Mr Hugo, who was born and raised in neighbouring Cessnock, has returned to town to enter the category of Everyday Mullet.

He is confident of winning the category.

"She's a pretty well-maintained mullet. She gets washed twice a day, brushed twice a day."

Other categories are the grubby mullet, the 'ranga' or redhead, the female mullet, and the junior mullet, to be decided by judges on Saturday afternoon.

Ms Johnson's father-in-law Kevin Johnson, who has worn his hair long since 1961, is not sure why there are so many mullets in Kurri Kurri.

Kevin Johnson has worn his hair long since 1961, but adopted the mullet in the 1980s to keep the hair out of his eyes. "I always wanted my hair to be like Billy Connolly's," he says. ( ABC Newcastle: Anthony Scully )

But he supports the festival's controversial, and not entirely serious, assertion that Kurri Kurri is the birthplace of the Australian mullet hairstyle.

"There's one guy older than me that's in the competition," Mr Johnson said.

"He says he's had a mullet all his life. So, it must be just a Kurri thing."

Ms Johnson has plans to expand the festival, and wants to add some mullet-inspired art to the town's collection of outdoor murals.