The following article will highlight the learnings gained from staging the collaborative fundraiser event on the 9th of May and how it influenced decisions for the final festival. This includes understanding the importance of recognising succeedings and drawbacks and how they will ultimately change future decisions. For this event, I found myself within a general production technical role. This included acquiring the content, creating  a deck, setting up the screen, projector and sound system.

I had little to any doubt in my competency to complete these tasks, thus I found that I gained little benefits from partaking. Some things which could have improved from a production standpoint include; a much more definitive run sheet to dictate the proceedings of the night, content to be delivered in a more timely fashion and less time elapsed between the screenings (or greater time management). These issues are fairly standardised for most events or productions that i’m involved in a professional capacity. They are universal issues and often get better with experience. A definitive Event Organiser (EO) or Production Manager (PM) for the night would have allowed much more of a succinct experience for both guests and the team. Ideally this will translate into the final event as the scope and scale is much larger.

Another drawback for the event was the amount of marketing and promotion that took place before the event. Posters were only disseminated 6 days prior to the event which allowed for very little coverage and awareness. For other festivals, promotion needs to be spread a few months in advance in order to build traction.  Due to our limited time frame in the studio, it is understandable that we could only conduct marketing in limited capacity. However for future festivals it would be advised that marketing materials should be prepared months in advance.

In terms of programming for the event. I feel that the selection was apt for the ‘canned’ theming of the experience. Although I do believe greater value could have been created if the films were similar genres. For example, a screening of ‘The Room’ would have worked nicely with ‘Ben and Arthur.’ The films would have complemented each other in terms of tackiness and cult following.