The yellow ducks and hungry clown heads were a classic crowd favourite, and the shooting galleries and milk bottles tested the true of aim.

Lisa Brandson, a light-up bubble balloon vendor who grew up across the road from the show grounds at Broadmeadow and has been in the show game for more than 20 years, said the crowd at the weekend was the biggest she had ever seen.

A neighbouring shaved ice vendor held up her hands and beamed, "I've got frost bite!" she said, "I've broken records!" Two extra ice shipments had already been brought in to keep up with demand.

At the top of the alley, Jess Turner of Dungog and her children - Ella, Daley and Seb - were trying their luck on the Angry Birds slingshot. Daley was decked out in his best country and western gear and crisp cowboy-cream hat. Ella had sampled the show food and thought the fairy floss is the best. And Seb was eager to try out the bow and arrow he had just won, but mum said it would be best to wait until they got home.

By 4pm, organisers said more than 1200 showgoers had streamed through the Curley Road gate, where the road was lined with vehicles. By around 6.30pm parking was bumper-to-bumper for streets spreading out from the showgrounds.

The grounds could host a potential crowd of 20,000 Saturday night before reaching social distancing limits. The daily crowd limit was initially set at 5,000 before being raised, reduced back to 5,000 again and finally lifted to 20,000, the Newcastle Herald reported Friday.

A drawcard event for the afternoon was billed as the biggest competitive eating event in Australia. A crowd of around 100 gathered to see Newcastle's famous now-retired competitive eater Jamie 'Lemon Blossom' Miller, take on two teams of first-timers to devour a massive 2.8 kilogram burger.

Kira Elliot and Jake Murnane of Cameron Park, and Lachlan Wynne and Riley Arvidson both of Maitland, were working on their strategy ahead of the competition. The rules allowed the teams to tag their partners in when they had eaten their fill, racing the lone Lemon Blossom through the monster burger provided by Harbour Bar.

"It's probably Newcastle's biggest burger," Miller said, "There's such a large quantity of meat, which is really delicious, and a lot of vegetables. Because it's a large quantity of food, you want to try to minimise the amount of liquids you take in because they're going to take up space.

"If you can, try to eat the meat with the salad. Leave the bread until last because that is going to be quite difficult. You want to try to nibble small pieces and swallow. If you take big bites, you're going to spend a lot of time chewing and get jaw fatigue."

Kirra made a valiant effort at the first half of the monster patty, while across the table Riley took a methodical approach attacking the bun first. Even as they tagged in their respective partners, though, it looked like the foodie champ had the win already in hand.

In the end, Lemon Blossom smashed his own previous record of around 40 minutes, towelling of the last of the burger bun in less than a half hour.

"He was a machine," Riley said afterwards, "My original plan was to get all the heavy bits out - the bun and the meat - but when I started to slow down I thought I'd eat the salad for a while, but I got to the point where I couldn't do that anymore."

Asked how he felt about burgers now, Riley said: "At the moment, less appealing."

The Newcastle show runs until Sunday.

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