On April 18 and 19 the weird, wonderful, quirky and creative will come out to play.

This year's theme is Gothic, which was announced at last year's festival with a carved headstone driven in a hearse by Kerry Linegar Funerals.

Ironfest Festival director Macgregor Ross said this year's theme was exciting and would bring a whole new range of people.

"All the Goths are coming out, it's a new clan," he said.

He said the last time he was this excited about a theme was back in 2012 when someone suggested Steampunk.

"Steampunk had a huge impact on our show, I'm hoping Gothic will do the same," he said.

Mr Ross said the other exciting thing was that other clans were going to get into the theme and get "Goth'd up".

"Steampunkers for example will be wearing black instead of brown and silver instead of bronze," he said.

He said Gothic was an edgy theme and he had always seen Lithgow as a bit of a Gothic town.

"As far as an aesthetic it's [Lithgow] got those severe mountains around and pretty amazing architecture," he said.

He said there was also the historical aspect of Gothic - the dark ages.

"The Goths played a major role in the fall of the Western Roman Empire and the emergence of Medieval Europe.

"It was the end of civilisation so it gives us an opportunity to bring in a whole lot of ancient historical reenactments," he said.

Mr Ross said the theme reflected a bit of what was happening in today's world and people being filled with anxiety.

"When you see someone that's goth'd up, you see they're on edge, they're marginal, they're a bit anxious.

"They have a whole lot of uncertainty in the world and to an extent that's what we are facing now," he said.

He said we were currently looking at an environmental apocalypse.

Also making news in Lithgow:

"We've just gone through a pretty heavy experience with fires and floods and now the coronavirus,"

"We weren't really depressed but not happy with how things are and I wonder how the Romans felt at the end of civilisation when the Goths were sacking, it reflects that," he said.

"We are going through a change and maybe realising we are not as secure as we thought we were."

Mr Ross said he hoped when people walked through the gates of Ironfest 2020 they felt the Gothic theme.

"We realised our front gate is our intro, it's the first impression so we are going to be putting a fair bit of emphasis on that.

"We really want to set the theme at that point," he said.

He said organisers were still working on decorations and looking at having skull walls and black satin everywhere.

"We are going to be using Gothic imagery to do the site up," he said.

Mr Ross said the festival wasn't too far away and organisers were busy preparing.

"We've got a really good team that has been consistent for several years, everybody knows what they're doing and everything seems to be on track.

"It's pretty much the same every year, you sort of get into a bit of a pattern," he said.

He said he was hopeful for another big crowd this year and looked forward to another big show.

"We are very excited, it's going to be great," he said.

Mr Ross also wanted to thank St John Evangelist Church and Lithgow State Mine Museum for allowing Ironfest to use their locations for their gothic photoshoots.

Tickets are available at https://ironfest.net/.