Now, One Festival To Rule Them All
Newcastle Herald
Friday January 18, 2002
As the city prepares to celebrate its annual Maritime Festival, Adrian Hurley looks at the whys and wherefores of growing the festival as part of an even bigger `signature' event for the Newcastle region.
CITIES and communities all around the world and across Australia seek a hallmark, or signature, event that will each year put them on the tourist map as the place to be or as a place to visit.
One only has to surf the Internet to see that every conceivable event or festival is held somewhere in the world. Each festival is attempting to offer something different, something unique, special, historical, outrageous, and so forth to attract tourists or attention.
In our region we have the Tamworth Country Music Festival, the Scone Horse Festival, Opera in the Vineyards, music festivals, wine festivals, Surfest and the Maritime Festival to name only a few. Only the Tamworth Country Music Festival has reached hallmark or signature status as a regular event.
From time to time we have `one-off' events such as the recent 8th Australian Masters Games that were a huge success. The Masters were a celebration of sport, a bringing together of a community, a large economic impact, a source of great pride and one of the biggest events in Australia in 2002.
The success of the Masters, and other events, prompts the question as to why Newcastle/Lake Macquarie doesn't have an event that is recognised around the world as an event in its own time and in its own right?
We do, of course, have the very successful Surfest and Maritime Festival. Both events are very well run and attract large crowds, but in the eyes of many have not reached the status of a signature or hallmark event.
If we start from the premise that Newcastle needs a signature event to `put it on the map', what is that event?
As I see it we have three options. The first is to develop one of the events we already have into signature status. The second is to create a new singular event of signature status (which can take 10 to 20 years in some cases). The third option is to create and develop a theme of events that utilises events we already have, adds new events and is marketed and recognised as `one' event of signature status.
The first option, to develop existing events, brings into question the potential of existing events and the ability to expand one of them into an international event of significance that will attract tourists in significant numbers.
Surfest and the Maritime Festival are often suggested as events capable of being expanded over the years into events that are whole-of-community events that will attract huge numbers of visitors to the region.
The second option, to create a new signature event, is a very difficult one.
It seems that anything worthwhile doing is already being done somewhere in Australia. Also, a new event can take a long time to develop. Remember that the Tamworth Country Music Festival took some 20 years to develop into its current status.
My preference is the third option, to create a theme of events that covers a six- to eight-week period in the calendar. For example Surfest, the Maritime Festival, other existing events, two or three major new events, supporting cultural, sporting, entertainment, and tourism events could be arranged around one theme and conducted over one period of time.
A very good example of this approach is `The Best on Earth in Perth'. This is a very successful theme pulling together a number of major events in Perth. This theme is branded, promoted and marketed as one theme event.
A Newcastle event possibly based on a theme such as water, the environment, the earth, industry, harvest, or a catchy theme could bring together a number of major events into one signature event.
Once you have the catchy theme, clever marketing can bring a number of events together, create new ones and attract supporting events and festivals. Each of the existing events is then promoting the others and they are all promoted as one. This allows marketing and promotion to be more extensive and spectacular.
The result is `one' event that attracts many tourists and makes Newcastle and the Hunter the place to be at that time of the year.
Newcastle and the Hunter is famous for its ability to rally together to achieve a result. We saw this very clearly with the Masters Games, the biggest and most successful Australian Masters Games in history.
The answer to creating our own signature event is to once again bring together all the stakeholders, combine resources and create our own catchy theme that appeals to the rest of Australia and to the world.
By creating a theme event, building on existing successful events and combining our `critical mass' of resources, experience and talents, the result can be `one' signature event that has the status of being one of `the' events/festivals on the Australian events calendar. Dr Adrian Hurley is the chief executive officer of the Newcastle and Hunter Events Corporation, which organised the 8th Australian Masters Games in Newcastle last year.
© 2002 Newcastle Herald
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