FESTIVAL DIRECTOR FOR 2018 & 2019’S QUEENSTOWN WINTER FESTIVALS
Full time Director of a festival turning 45 in 2019 - one with high emotional investment from a small town, with a huge voice. 151 million people in fact.
Attracting over 57,000 unique attendees, the Queenstown Winter festival exists to reflect Queenstowners and invite visitors to celebrate the start New Zealand’s ski and snow season with us. Festival attracted over $1.9m in earned media and injected over $4.4m into the local economy.
Due to its longevity, the role was political and weighted heavily in positioning. Festival has multiple stakeholders and the delivery of the event itself sometimes plays second fiddle to solidifying its place & identity in the community.
Sponsorship and Event leverage playing a huge part in this role, and the role instrumental in changing behaviours, perceptions, and ensuring festivals long-term lifespan.
Strategy, understanding emotional investment and motivations, being a disruptor, understanding value, demonstrating strengths - All valuable skills within this role.
Responsible for all programming, direction of festival, sponsorships, media, marketing and promotions.
When I took festival on, there was a deficit of nearly $200,000, apathy and appetite for change. Two festivals later, I left a robust festival that has increased buy-in, a credible reputation and a much healthier bottom line - cost neutral in fact.
Physical location changes, introducing environmental benefits, staffing structure amendments, positioning and introducing best practice sponsorship systems all contributed towards the success of the festivals, coupled with a good dose of elbow grease, of course.
The strategy implemented to ensure this phase of change resulted positively included:
identifying the festival’s purpose and vision - why did it exist, for who and what did it exist to achieve?
stakeholder engagement - learning about the perceived position, and its ability to progress
communication - taking stakeholders on the journey with us
staffing restructure - in order to deliver on higher expectations with fewer resources
changing a confused message to a clear message - clarifying the focus in an easily understandable way
evolving relationships with sponsors - creating the dynamic where the audience was the value piece
trust - delivering on promises, sharing results and being transparent
monitoring, reporting and sharing analytics on positive change
www.winterfestival.co.nz
