Teresa Walters
Marketing Director , Brisbane Festival
Written by April Ellis on 2008-10-15
What do you see happening in the next five years in the festivals and events industry?
The festivals and events industry has really changed since I’ve started working in it. There’s a definite shift and I think the industry will continue to get bigger. Festivals and events always generate some level of publicity however small or large they are because people enjoy reading about them and they also want to know what’s on so they have things to go to. I think there will be a natural expansion as our population continues to expand and more people with different interest will move here from other cities and that’s often how cultural celebrations start.
What are the biggest challenges you and your organisation face as a member of the Brisbane media community?
One of the challenges that we face as a company is perhaps not quite enough competitiveness between the different media organisations. I think that whilst we have the three commercial television stations and quite a lot of print media, at this stage there is not enough competitiveness around them and we do tend to get a little bit stuck as to how to promote the festivals and events. There’s a sense from some media organisations that there’s one way we approach this and I think that the media industry in Brisbane itself can be a little bit more creative.
What are the most important/valuable skills that graduates can bring to your industry?
I think that having initiative is an invaluable skill. It’s great for graduates to understand how the industry works and understand who the key players are and know how to perform a range of tasks, whether it’s writing something or engaging with a website. But I think even though graduates won’t have much experience, one of the most valuable traits we would like to see people bring to an organisation is initiative and even their own thoughts and ideas. It is also important that gradates are continually up to date and aware of what’s happening within industry.
How would you rate the performance of Brisbane-based media organisations in comparison to other national and international media hubs?
In the comment towards national media, the Brisbane media industry is really equal to what else is happening around Australia. If you go to different states and you look at different media outlets I think that the Brisbane media industry is performing as well as the other states. With respect to international, I haven’t really worked in the international media arena for about seven years, I worked for three years in the UK, with the UK media, and I mean it’s just not comparable to Australia because the number of titles and the population is so huge. It’s a little bit hard to compare the Australian media landscape with international, just because the scale of it is nowhere near there.
How has new media such as the Internet and mobile communications revolutionised your workplace?
Technology has defiantly helped our organisation. For the first time this year for Brisbane Festival, we utilised social media networks such as Facebook and MySpace for three of our key events and I think it was an effective space for us to be in. The growth of websites, including news and social networking sites has probably shaken up the media industry a little bit. I think you’ll see that’s meriting what print media is doing now, as they tend to have a lot more social columns and opinion columns in a way to compete and stay on the same par with websites. I think it’s a natural movement.
Why are cultural and community festivals so important to Brisbane?
Cultural and community events are important for Brisbane because they contribute towards the engagement of all different communities coming together to celebrate different aspects of living in Brisbane. It’s also a way in which different neighbourhoods and communities might work together on projects when they don’t usually have any contact between the different communities. Festivals also offer opportunity for exposure for artist to be able to perhaps get a little bit more in front of the media. So artists who appear in festivals might not necessary have a media profile yet, but through the engagement with the festival it’s an opportunity for them to actually be interviewed by the media and be featured in different media.
There are many opinions about Brisbane lacking in the festival and cultural scene compared to interstate. What do you think of this?
I think that use to be a true statement maybe about five years ago and whilst we might not have the number of festivals Sydney and Melbourne have, we also still don’t have their population. But I think it’s pretty obvious that if you look at the events calendar of Brisbane even just between the months of April and September, there’s so much going on. Whether it’s a small community festival out in the suburbs or a larger citywide festival such as Brisbane Festival or Riverfestival, there is a wide variety a festivals and events for the Brisbane community to choose from.