Fellow travellers and a touch of bohemia in the tropics
- 13 Jun 2014
As a national and international event based in Townsville, in North Queensland, the Australian Festival of Chamber Music has embraced opportunities arising from engagement with the tourism sector. This is evidenced through the partnership with SeaLink and their travel business, Australian Holiday Centre, to offer a full travel service and three exclusive holiday packages for festival goers in 2014. This kind of cultural tourism initiative is new to many arts organisations who may not know where to begin or indeed what value tourism connections might bring to their businesses. Sue Hackett, General Manager of the Australian Festival of Chamber Music provides her insights and experiences on engaging with the tourism industry.
The Australian Festival of Chamber Music (AFCM) has been around for 24 years now and like so many small arts organisations has few assets and no premises to call its own. In 2005, office space was needed. Sunferries’ (as the company was then) owner Terry Dodd and the Port Authority provided a life line /office space by organising for the e festival to move into a large corner office on the 1st floor of the ferry terminal building in Townsville providing an artistic and bohemian note to a shipshape organisation .The relationship has been amicable and productive ever since.
A signature AFCM event is a deserted tropical island beach concert and Sunferries were pivotal in managing ferry charter, knowing the tides and access to uninhabited beaches, and ordering up whales on cue for interstate visitors to delight in. We never did decide whether creative or production got credit for that. In 2011 Sunferries was acquired by SeaLink, a South Australian company and one of Australia’s most dynamic tourism and transport and travel operators and without missing a beat AFCM were able to stay on in the ferry terminal which was now leased by SeaLink.
If they were a bit bemused over this inherited partnership with a chamber music festival in tropical North Queensland to start with they were quickly won over. They recognised a high quality event and appreciated the national and international recognition that the AFCM enjoys – it’s a cliché but it is really a unique, a high calibre chamber music festival in a tropical setting, an exotic flourish in North Queensland. In 2013, around about the same time SeaLink was moving in, the AFCM was recognised by Events Queensland as a major event. The subsequent merger between Tourism Queensland and Events Queensland was beneficial as we were suddenly talking the same language ie tourism + festival event = cultural tourism!
SeaLink General Manager Paul Victory has provided us with much appreciated advice. Paul introduced us to the Australian Holiday Centre (AHC) in Sydney when we were looking for a one stop concert ticket and travel package operator. We discussed the packages with several operators but SeaLink and the AHC covered all bases ie flights, accommodation and concert tickets all with a single call. We were delighted to be able to extend our collaboration – the bohemians were becoming even more business savvy and shipshape.
We sorted allocations for concert tickets providing great seats so that the packages were good value, secured a good range of hotel partners and provided training for AHC and Townsville SeaLink staff selling AFCM packages. The packages had been designed to encourage travel on either side of the chosen concert days, say a day on Magnetic Island or exploring Charters Towers or other activities in North Queensland. This year we have added AHC’s Adelaide office to the mix and, with Tourism and Event Queensland’s ’s help, New Zealand House of Travel in Auckland have started selling AFCM packages.
With the Townsville SeaLink team in the same premises we were able to work through the logistics of setting up the packages in their ticketing system and then fine tuning any issues as they arose – things like making sure allocated seats were checked off on a central record, quickly responding to ‘add ons’ when people wanted to add other AFCM events to their package.
Our partnerships and sharing our working space with SeaLink is a big advantage, we have quick and easy access to each other and without pushing it you learn about each other’s challenges and successes. Oh! and there’s a great view over the Coral Sea and Magnetic Island! I’ll end with a good story that is not only an example of a cultural tourist but demonstrates relationships at all levels of the arts experience are important. Mr W bought a package last year via the online tourism booking site AHC for his first AFCM. We took care of him by organising airport pick-up, introductions etc while he was here .He is now taking care of us– he is returning this year as a ticket purchaser, donor and artist supporter. Go team!
Sue joined the Festival in February 2011. Born in Dublin and raised in Adelaide she worked as a professional musician for many years, principally in Adelaide and in France. In 1988 she made the move to arts administration and worked for ten years as Artists’ Department Manager for Opera Australia. In 1999 she returned to Europe where she edited publications and managed the press office for Wexford Festival Opera in Ireland for three years finally settling again in Bologna in Italy where she set up Canvas Management, a successful international agency managing a list of directors and designers working in theatre and opera. In 2007 she returned to Sydney and in 2009 took up the position of General Manager of Pacific Opera. Returning to chamber music and AFCM’s unique combination of setting and programming lured her to the tropics.