A little bit of craftiness

The festival office has gone all quiet. We’re back down to five staff members only for roughly the next six months, and I’m starting to miss the windswept hijinks of festival time. I lie; there were few hijinks. High-pressure deadlines, but hijinks, not so much. If asked nicely I may be persuaded to make something up. Oh, the family have gone into the world to other jobs; don’t forget us guys!

We’re still wrapping up and debriefing; I personally have paid more invoices in one month than I thought existed in the entire history of the WORLD (again, not quite true). Today I met with the lovely Kim Brockett of Craft Victoria (meeting over at Craft Victoria in Flinders Lane more or less so that I could peruse the storefront and current exhibition). All agree; Craft Hatch @ MWF was a wonderful thing and brainstorming has begun for more ways to have craftiness in the festival. I’m writing a wish list. Lists are fun.

In the meantime, because everyones loves photos, here are some photos of Craft Hatch @ MWF 2009. I’ll be posting more photos of the festival in the weeks to come – keep an eye on this space. 

Pictured: Zoe Churchill, Wah Wah Wears; Photography: Jim Lee

Pictured: Nicholas Jones; Photography: Jim Lee

Pictured: Samantha Parsons, Studio Sam; Photography: Jim Lee

Louise Angrilli
Festival Administrator

Smells like…

The atrium at Federation Square is quiet. A whirr of a coffee machine off in the distance, and a regular clump clump from Readings bookshop as they set up books for the day. Some muzak, thankfully unidentifiable, is humming through the airwaves. And then. And then a noise in the background, a gentle hum, a louder drone. Getting louder. And then BLAM. In comes the first schools group, 21 13 year olds, followed by more and more groups, led by their harassed teachers shouting in vain to keep them under some semblance of control. The festival’s schools program has started. 10,000 students in 3 days.

They come in waves, getting louder and louder and then shuffling into the sessions for the hour, bouncing off each other,  yelling, bumping into  everything, putting their tickets out to be scanned, and barging into the venues.  

Peace reigns for a while. Then the riffs of noise start up again as they all come out in the same gamboling, uncoordinated, bumping way, eating, drinking, just sucking in life as they go about their day.  Eventually they disperse to make way for the next tsunami of school groups.

I go into the venue.  It’s littered with bits of paper and unidentifiable flotsam.  The whole place smells of hormones – wafting through the space looking for somewhere to implant themselves.

I back out.

It’s exhausting.We all feel we’ve survived some spectacular, some cataclysm.  But it’s fun, energetic, life affirming. 

Later that day, the cleaners at Federation Square email me to say they’ll have to charge extra for after the schools. 

Two more days before we go back to the main program. 

Helenka
Festival Manager

Discovering MWF at Federation Square

David Sedaris (far right)

Hi everybody

This is my first year working for MWF and I must confess that last year was the first year that I actually attended the festival as a visitor. I went to see David Sedaris, who I discovered a few years ago after I confessed to a good friend of mine that I felt guilty about the fact that all I did when I lived in Paris was go to the cinema. Fans of Sedaris may recall “The City of Light in the Dark”,  the piece he wrote in Me Talk Pretty One Day about this exact subject so my friend sent me the book and I became hooked ever since. I also went to see John Pilger as an author I had once arranged a book launch for was a big fan so I thought I should see what the fuss was all about. I wasn’t disappointed.

Why on earth had I not attended the Melbourne Writers Festival before? I’ve been asking myself this recently and concluded that a huge factor had been my perception of the previous Malthouse venue as a hassle to get to, even though I happily make the effort to go there to see pieces of theatre that I’m interested in (plus I also now work in the office next door three times a week).  But MWF’s move in 2008 to Federation Square certainly made the festival feel so much more accessible and I did love being the city to attend events. It turns out that my experience and attitude were common ones as attendance numbers last year increased to 40,000+ with a big jump in the 24-35 year-old demographic, of which I can still claim to be part of. That is now the festival’s second biggest demographic after those of you in the 36-55 age group. Naturally there were many factors for this increase but our research does suggest that the move to Fed Square was overwhelmingly a significant one.

Anyway, the festival in back in Fed Square again this year and I think that’s a great. Only yesterday I received a very helpful message via our contact page from Christopher who had lots of brilliant suggestions on things like signs around Fed Square and festival maps. I’m pleased to say that sort of thing and it is all part of the plan for 2009.

So, what about the rest of you? Are you relatively new to the MWF festival like I am or are you seasoned visitors? Do you share my enthusiasm for Fed Square?

Thomas
MWF Marketing Co-ordinator

PS By the way, before the David Sedaris event at last year’s festival I got him to sign my original dog-eared copy of Me Talk Pretty One Day and dedicate it to the friend who originally sent it to me. I mailed that copy back to my friend as a belated thank-you and then promptly bought myself a crisp brand-new copy. I thought that was a nice thing to do at the time but I now worry that I should have sent my friend the new copy instead of the tattered old one. Oh well.