When the Golden City Pipe Band march in the 150th Bendigo Easter Fair it will be a personal milestone for the group.
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The band will celebrate its's 70th Easter fair performance when they take part in the Bendigo Advertiser Gala Parade on Easter Monday.
In an effort to ramp up celebrations, pipe major Helen Dilks has been feverishly contacting former members to join the band for the parade.
"Traditionally, we always invite former members to come and join us at Easter because it is so big in Bendigo," she said.
"This year we are going one step further and inviting people who no longer play to join us also. We want them to follow on behind the band in the Monday parade.
"Our playing memebrs this year will be around 45 people but I' not sure how many will walk behind us. There are several people in their 80s or 90s that will come down (View Street) in a car to be part of it."
Ms Dilks said if any former members wanted to join this year's celebrations, they just had to reach out to her.
"I have been spending four or five hours a day looking for (former members) on Facebook, in phone books or by door knocking," she said.
"There are probably a lot who don't facebook that are former members. We want to invite them to contact me either through Facebook or by phone so we can have the best celebration we can."
Bendigo's 150th Easter fair will also be one of the biggest occasions Golden City Pipe Band has played for more than two years as COVID cut out the possibilities of performing at national championships.
Ms Dilks said the band is determined to bring the highest quality sound it possibly can.
"There always is a lot of preparation to get a band out to perform because we have really high standards," she said. "We work really hard and we're a very committed group.
"It's exciting but when we hit Pall Mall under the trees, you feel the standard goes up. There's something about that area - maybe it's the shade - but it makes it special. We're exhausted by the end of it but it is rally satisfying."
The band was formed in 1951 and first performed at Easter in Bendigo in 1952. Ms Dilks is proud to say she was there from the start with her dad.
"I was born in 1950 and was in the band from 1951," she said. "I was on the kitchen table the week after I left the hospital with my father playing the practice (songs) to me.
"It was bred into me. My father started playing in 1941 and when this band evolved he was the tutor for about three or four months. Then he said "I don't know what happened, I was tutoring and three months later I'm the pipe major.
"I had break (from the band) because my husband was in the air force and we were away."
Family is one of the main reason the band has survived more than 70 years.
Drum major Nola Blake will have her two grandchildren, aged 16 and 12, performing along side her this year. Nola has had five generations of her family as part of the band at one point or another.
"It just comes through the families. The daughter of another piper is 14 and will play," Ms Dilks said.
"We have around 25 members and a big family involvement. There's mums and dads and kids and families. Though we do a lot of members when kids are 18 or 19 go to university.
"We are a teaching band as well, so if people approach us saying they want to learn, we will teach them. We also network with schools but that's slowed down because of COVID."
This year's Easter festival repertoire will be packed with familiar tunes.
"We are playing crowd appeal music," Ms Dilk said. "It's no good playing stuff people don't know. So it will be things like Scotland the Brave, so people can excited when they know it.
"After Anzac Day we get couple weeks off but the next major thing will be the Australian Championships in Sydney in October. Hopefully the competition season will kick off again after that.
"We hve played in two competitions in the last four weeks, which were our first for two for two years. So they are starting to return again."
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