Believe it or not Canberra team the Dragons of Oz - beautifully dressed as Wizard of Oz characters - didn't win last weekend's Coota Beach Volleyball Festival fancy dress prize.
The prize, judged this year by crowd applause rather than a panel, went to local team Coota Chella - but the Dragons took it in good spirits and played for a while in full costume at Sunday's semi finals before their costumes got too hot for most of them.
Weather was perfect for the event, although organisers would have liked a light shower in the middle of Saturday afternoon as the sand got uncomfortably hot and needed hosing down.
An estimated 600 visitors brought the town to life, justifying the hard work put in by the four-person committee and especially by Cootamundra-Gundagai Regional Council which trucked in more than 700 tonnes of sandy loam, put up grandstands and created six new courts along Murray Street, in addition to the two permanent volleyball courts at the rear of the swimming pool.
Chair Janine Ricketts said the event went off very smoothly, with only one hitch on Saturday night with a smart person deciding to pinch the padding the committee had borrowed from the junior league, which was retrieved by the security guard.
The A grade winner was The Fun Committee, a Newcastle team who dressed up in T-shirts similar to Coota committee members - the difference being they used last year's purple colour, and had "the fun committee' on the back instead of just "committee".
Other results: A grade runners up were Valley Trolls. A Reserve winners YMYD.
B Grade Dragons OZ (from Canberra), RU Net Ninjas
C Grade - Settsy and We Know It (Coota); RU - Sandflies (Coota)
D Grade - Cootachella (Coota), RU - Sand Blastards (Coota)
The event ran slightly over time on Sunday but the grand final was on at 2.20 pm and everything was wrapped up by 3pm.
124 teams participated. It's a mixed event, with each team of six required to have no more than three males on court at any given time.
The "small but mighty" committee would like more members, and invites anyone interested in helping with next year's event to join.
