Visitors donned face masks just before the clock struck 6pm, in line with new restrictions announced by NSW Premier Gladys Berejiklian only a few hours before the event was due to go ahead.

Wagga City Council's winter festival, estimated to add about $2.3 million in total to the local economy, returned after a year off for a night of live music, performance art and food spread across the central business district.

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Best mates Lily McCausland and Kiandra Dejong, both 7, said that apart from eating doughnuts they were most keen to try ice-skating for the first time, on the rink set up for the school holidays in the Victory Memorial Gardens.

"It's good because you get to spend time with your friends and family," Kiandra said.

The new coronavirus restrictions for regional NSW, announced in response to the worsening outbreak in Sydney, include a return to the one-person-per-four-square-metre rule, which meant visitors queued up to enter some cordoned off sections of the festival.

Spencer Barbarous said that despite the restrictions he was thoroughly enjoying his first event since moving to Wagga six months ago.

"It's good. To be honest I sort of hadn't expected something like this to happen in Wagga. Just because it's pretty radical, and Wagga's not hugely radical," he said.

Event volunteers and council staff quickly rose to the challenge of the new rules, which saw them handing out disposable masks along with the festival guide.

"All things considered it's really good. This sort of changed my role. I was basically doing events staging and setting up but then the directive came out mid-afternoon," said volunteer David Prowse

Colin Wiese of the Wagga Sunrise Rotary Club was handing out masks on the corner of Fitzmaurice and Johnston Street and said he'd seen steady crowds all evening.

"I wasn't at the last Lost Lanes [in 2019], but I'm just thinking it's good. From 5pm onwards it's been busy," he said.

Elsewhere, by the DJ decks in the car park behind the ABC office, Laurence Jones and Elly Paxios were enjoying the end of a long regional holiday after international flight restrictions saw them swap the French Riviera for the NSW Riverina.

"We're working our way back to Sydney. We escaped ages ago and this is our last night before we go into lockdown," Mr Jones said.

Mayor Greg Conkey said he was very happy Lost Lanes could go ahead after a significant amount of work behind the scenes at the council.

"It's a great event and full credit to the staff for coming up with that concept two or three years ago. I know the ice-skating rink has got solid support already," he said.

"I'm happy that [the NSW government] has encouraged people who are in Sydney not to come to Wagga.

"We've got to take all the precautions we can. It's a difficult situation and we can appreciate that, but we need to look at the greater good and that is that we just need to protect the community the best way we can."

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