For me there is only one month to go before I am officially a free bird and will be able to put the stress of the Beaufort Street Festival behind me. To be honest I haven't done so well on the regular blog updates because so much of the work I have been doing has been confidential or changes by the hour, that it has been difficult to know what to talk about.
Finally the BSF team has hit the home stretch, rolled out the media strategy and is in the process of tying the loose ends before the big day. So much of our plans to date have revolved around a road closure that has only been confirmed in the past week and so there has been a huge weight taken off everyone's shoulders at the news that City of Vincent has approved plans to shut down Beaufort Street for the day.
The logistical planning behind an event of this size still baffles me and the complexities and motivations of different parties (or stakeholders, in PR terms) involved really makes for an unrelenting challenge!
In relation to the arts program, the committee and I have been formulating some ideas to build a bit of hype around the artists involved and raise awareness about the different projects happening on the day. For us, the focus has now turned slightly to come up with ways of making sure that in a crowd of 75,000 people on a street jam-packed with 5 music stages, bars, business events and a heap of food, festival-goers know where to look for the art!
A festival booklet is currently in development however with so many individual happenings it is impossible to fit everything on and still have legible! The arts committee have come up with a few cool ideas (none of which I can go into detail about) but you will all have to look out for some quirky additions to Beaufort Street's surrounding areas in the next couple of weeks.
I have been working to prep all the media release copy for the arts program release on Monday morning. As my goal is to ensure the artists involved in the projects are showcased as much as possible, it has been a pretty full on job to compile all the artist info, descriptions and links for inclusion in the releases....never thought I would say this but I will be glad when this weekend is over.
Another thing I have been busy working on is an arts collaboration between Propel Youth Arts and a local performing arts producer Marisa Gareffa. They have created The Steampunk Sideshow which is going to be the most amazing street installation. What I love about the project is the community aspect; it truly embodies everything this festival stands for. Over the next month, Propel will be facilitating a series of youth-based construction and performing arts workshops which will culminate in the creation of a huge junk castle and puppet performance space in the middle of street. Think 2m tall rocketships, a Tim Burton-esque castle and an awesome puppet booth, nearly completely created by kids in conjunction with an army of local creatives and businesses....it's going to be brilliant.
Check out Propel's website, they do amazing stuff within the community with local youth: Propel Youth Arts
One of the festival's sponsors Bremick Group have kindly leant us their storage warehouse in East Perth which is quickly becoming a bit of a creative hub. I am so excited to get down there this week to check out how the kids are going with the workshops. The warehouse is also storing some very cool loungeroom settings and will house the development of another amazing project that won't be revealed until the festival day.
The next two weeks are going to pretty full on between the festival, work, uni and the other internship I am working on....might leave that one to talk about in the next post ;)
How are you guys going juggling all your commitments?
I have found it hard because especially when it comes to experience opportunities, although you really want to give it 100% and sponge up as much as you can, there is so much else going on!
Hope you are all going well!
Brody x
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