Intro
Special events is an area in which I have specific skills and experience in the conduct of community and corporate events.
Having conducted community events such as the Concorde Welcome to Cairns for the Port Authority when they owned the airport. Air France described the welcome at the time as “the best community welcome in 21 years of flying”.
In July 1997 I resigned from P&O Resorts (Silky Oaks) and started Felan Consulting and Event Services. In August ’97 TTNQ engaged me on a 9 month contract to coordinate a Tourism Australia business event known as Dreamtime. Dreamtime 98 was the first time that the event had been held outside a capital city. It is a week long event with activities occurring from early morning to midnight every day.
The Palm Cove Torch Relay in 2000. Quicksilver nudged up to the beach with the torch flame on the bow of the vessel. Out of all of Australia there were about 7 locations that were included in the short edit that went international. Palm Cove was one of them. The tide was suitable so we had laid out coconut fronds on the beach in the form of the Olympic Rings + Palm Cove.
For two years in the early 2000’s I conducted the Palm Cove Christmas Parade. It was very successful and by now could have been one of the signature Christmas events for Australia. But the TPC committee decided that they would save my fee and run it themselves. It became just a group of people singing carols along the esplanade. There is nothing wrong with that for a community but a destination promotion organisation needs to aspire to a higher purpose.
TPC was tasked with conducting the final night of a Cairns ATEC event in Caryota Close. They were having problems bringing it together and I was asked as Felan Event Services to submit a proposal. The budget was $5k as I recall. I relocated it to French St and presented the proposal. It was about $25k from memory. Tony Marrinan of Reef House (owned by Mirvac at the time) said we’ll put in $15k and others made up the balance. It was a great event. We called it Coconut Capers and ran coconut themed games for the duration of the event. People get tired of talking to each other. This gave them a chance to mix more easily. They still did their networking but in a much more conducive environment.
Then properties like Ramada and Novotel were strata titled and instead of TPC having the benefit of experienced international resort operators, with sensible marketing budgets on the committee
Less Recently
In previous centuries humans created community occasions, usually once a year, to celebrate important aspects of life in their communities.
These could be religious such as The Hajj in Mecca for Muslims or Christmas in Christian communities. The Greeks created the Olympics in honour of Zeus, the King of the Gods.
“A festival is an extraordinary event celebrated by a community and centering on some characteristic aspect or aspects of that community and its religion or cultures.” – Wiki
The festivals and significant occasions of past centuries generally evolved around people wanting to share or celebrate with others something important to their community rather than focussing on money as the prime motive.
More Recently
It could be Sports such as Wimbledon for London or the Kona Ironman for Hawaii. They could be music festivals such as Glastonbury or our very own Byron Blues or Woodford Folk. While all of these make more money for the communities in which they are hosted, the original prime motive had integrity of purpose.
Most Recently
In the last 20 or 30 years ‘festivals’ have popped up everywhere. Almost without exception the prime motive is money. The State Tourism Organisations all have grants available to destinations for special events or festivals.
Surely one of the biggest challenges was Goomeri – known for its pumpkins. They managed to build a successful annual festival around rolling pumpkins down a hill.
Similarly Chinchilla has created a festival around melons where the signature event is stomping on melons.
One of the reasons that these festivals survive is because the central theme is integral to daily lives for residents and businesses.
More Regionally
One of our most successful regional festivals is Port Douglas Carnivale. It has been happening since 2000. The success of this festival goes back to the opening of Sheraton Mirage in 1987.
Sheraton Mirage allowed Port Douglas to become a preferred destination for corporate groups with big budgets to keep their hundreds of top performers entertained day and night over a number of days.
In response to this need, Amelia and Nick’s Hannaford’s Special Events and Byron and Vicki’s MAD events company were the prime suppliers. They built the local skills and knowledge around event delivery for hundreds and ultimately thousands of guests.
They were supported by Donna and Peter Anderson investing in event infrastructure and Peter Hassall of Stageworks for performance productions. A special mention here to Rodney Woollatt (Coconut Rodney) who not only brought the coconut experience as such but surrounded it with his spirited colourful service team.
By the time the first iteration of Carnivale came along in 2000, Port Douglas had 10 years of event experience to support it. Both Hannafords and MAD were involved in managing Carnivale in its early years.
In spite of many years of experience they both had challenges in operating Carnivale to budget. There are two major challenges with operating outdoor community festivals being the weather and meeting the expectations of volunteer committees. It’s easier to meet the expectations of Fortune 500 companies than local committees.
More Locally
Palm Cove has had a number of attempts at an annual festival over the past 20 years or so, some better than others. They were run by Tourism Palm Cove (TPC). Recently TPC has decided that they will not run a festival in future. This may be a sensible decision. The core responsibility of a volunteer Local Tourism Association like TPC is to promote the destination for the benefit of all members across the year. TPC doesn’t have the resources of the Port Douglas LTA for example to take on festival management as well as general destination promotion.
There is a risk for Palm Cove however in our LTA abrogating their responsibilities in this area if the void is filled by a well meaning but inexperienced organisation.
Referring back to Goomeri and Chinchilla for example, where tourism visitation throughout the year isn’t critical to the economy, it isn’t that important if the festivals are good or bad or don’t happen at all. Palm Cove is different. The Palm Cove economy is ALL about tourism. Everything we do in projecting our profile to the world is critical and needs to meet the core promotional goals of tourism related businesses.
This doesn’t mean that there isn’t a place for organisations such as the newly formed Advance Palm Cove group. Like the Dog Show and the recent Christmas in July events they are local community events. See a longer
However, for numerous reasons this group shouldn’t be supported by TTNQ or TEQ