The world-famous festival begins this evening, on time and with everything intact.

This is despite winds of close to 100km/h lashing Port Fairy on Wednesday night and wreaking havoc at the festival’s main arena at Southcombe Park.

Festival construction crew leader Jack Smits said the show would go on with the recovery from the galeforce winds to be complete by the start of the event.

“We had a really good couple of weeks setting up so we were a day in front of schedule,” Mr Smits said. 

“That came in very handy after the winds hit, it has allowed us the time to get everything back on track.

“A gable blew out of the 40-metre Shebeen tent so we will repair that on site and the roof was ripped out of three of the six-metre tents and replacements were sourced from Warrnambool for them.

“And we lost a roof of a 10x10 tent altogether and that has been replaced.

“We were lucky the winds hit when they did and not during the festival because we would have had to evacuate the site if everyone was in here.”

As it was, the site was cleared from 7-9am on Thursday as electricians isolated the power and ensured it was safe for the full construction crew to begin the repairs.

Forecasts for the weekend point to wind and some showers today before the wind eases over the weekend with some light rain predicted.

An estimated 30,000 people are expected to converge on the town during the weekend.

Entry to the festival arena is by ticket only with 15,000 people expected to witness a world-class line-up of performers including Sinead O’Connor, the John Butler Trio, Mama Kin, Richard Thompson, Buffy Sainte-Marie and Sharon Shannon.

A similar number of people will flock to the town without tickets but will not be left without entertainment with the free fringe festival in the town’s CBD.

Festival president Bruce Leishman said plenty of hard work had gone into bringing the festival together.

“It has been a big effort from all the volunteers and other contractors to get the arena ready,” Mr Leishman said.