CASE STUDY

Festival of the Olive

SCOPE

Festival of the Olive is a two-day festival celebrating Australia's modern Mediterranean influences and its colonial past. One of the premier events in Western Sydney's cultural calendar, it presents an opportunity for a collaboration between olive growers, olive oil and food producers, olive industry bodies, Mediterranean Australians, culinary experts, performers and artists.

This biennial event, developed and produced by the Historic Houses Trust (HHT), regularly attracts crowds of 4000 visitors, with its primary objective to showcase the historic Elizabeth Farm. Elizabeth Farm House was commenced in 1793 and contains part of the oldest surviving European building in Australia. It is a property owned and operated by the HHT, a state government organisation under the umbrella of Arts NSW, part of the Department of Arts, Sports and Recreation.

This case study will examine Festival of the Olive 2005, which took place on the weekend of 5 and 6 November from 10.00 am to 5.00 pm at Elizabeth Farm, Rosehill, New South Wales. Festival of the Olive had been held on this historic site on four previous occasions.

Rationale

While the olive is recognised as part of Australia's recent multicultural history, it also plays a part in our colonial past. Festival of the Olive is held at Elizabeth Farm because Australia's oldest surviving exotic tree is planted in its gardens. The tree, a European olive (Olea europaea), planted in 1805, continues to produce fruit today. Appropriately, Festival of the Olive 2005 also commemorated the two hundredth year of this planting.

Development stage 1

As event coordinator, I was presented with the production folders from previous incarnations of Festival of the Olive. These folders included debrief meeting minutes, allowing me to ready a summary basically a SWOT analysis that charted the development, successes and failures of previous festivals. I then entered into discussions with the head of the public programs unit (PPU) of the HHT to discuss my findings, proposed expenditure and vision for the festival. I then had two weeks to develop a festival proposal, which was presented at the first production meeting, held onsite at Elizabeth Farm.

This meeting, chaired by the head of PPU, was held three and a half months out from the festival and involved a wide range of HHT stakeholders: the curator/manager, chief guide, gardener and office manager of Elizabeth Farm; HHT marketing manager and publicist; retail manager; sponsorship manager; and education unit representatives. At this meeting it was unanimously decided to keep the staging areas consistent with Festival of the Olive 2003, as it was deemed to have been a very successful use of a small site. This meant the site was broken into the following precincts:

shuttle bus and ticketing entry point

reserved parking area

garden areas

Elizabeth Farm House

children's activity area

stallholder areas

main stage and viewing area

food and beverage area

talk and taste tent

coolroom storage and service entry area

Elizabeth Farm tearooms

toilet areas

garbage and cleaning supplies areas.

After presentation of the festival proposal, meeting attendees were invited to make suggestions on any aspects of the festival. The attendees made suggestions relating to keynote speakers/demonstrators, possible local content, catering and entertainment. This resulted in a broad range of diverse opinions, invaluable local knowledge and access to HHT corporate knowledge.

Festival management structure

At the first production meeting the festival's management structure was consolidated. As event coordinator I had ultimate carriage of the project, with direction from the head of PPU. The marketing, retail, education and sponsorship units of the HHT were each given carriage of relevant aspects of the festival, with the next meeting as the deadline for their proposals. It was important to allow at least a month between each meeting as staff members were working on multiple projects at any given time. This way it could reasonably be assumed that there would be time to do what was undertaken and that each meeting constructively built towards the festival.

Festival development stage 2

During this time I began sourcing the festival's infrastructure stages, marquees, equipment hire, electrics providers, shuttle buses, etc. I also started to negotiate with local community groups, organisations and businesses, caterers, stallholders and 'celebrity' chefs. My main hurdle during this development stage was finding an appropriate form of engagement with the local community.

Previously the festival had relied on the fundraising arm of a religious organisation to provide introductions into the local community. This group also coordinated and ran one of the primary catering stalls, which was seen as an appropriate revenue raising/cultural profiling opportunity by both parties. Unfortunately this association had not been maintained in the 'off' years when the festival was not held. As a result of changes in management and staff, links with the community group had disappeared.

While many long-term stakeholders questioned how the festival would continue without this association, it was also a chance to re-evaluate the notion of 'community involvement'. This became a necessity once I started talking with other local community groups.

I discovered that many of these groups were already involved in a 'spring/multicultural' fair, to occur on the same Saturday as our festival, presented by the local council. It seemed the council had used our 'off' year to establish a fair similar in content to the Festival of the Olive.

This discovery led to the realisation that Festival of the Olive could no longer be delivered on the goodwill of local community groups. In fact, despite the altruistic inferences of the festival's community event of the year award, I was of the opinion that Festival of the Olive should be developed and produced as a food festival whose inspiration was the local community's Mediterranean heritage. Thus the 'community' aspect of the festival could more suitably be seen in its ability to reflect the heritage of a section of the local community, and hence be relevant and popular within the local community.

After consultation with HHT festival stakeholders, it was decided to consult and engage with businesses that presented aspects of Mediterranean cultural heritage such as olive based cuisines, traditional dance and music, and community. on a commercial basis. This would allow the festival to present and reflect aspects of Mediterranean cultures with an approach that was more in keeping with a museum-curated approach. The festival's content, like Elizabeth Farm House, could then be more easily 'read' as an objective interpretive tool.

Programming the staging areas

There were three main staging areas scattered throughout the site. These areas were the main stage (musical and dance entertainments), the talk and taste tent (cooking demonstrations and olive oil tastings), and the Eastern garden (book readings and local primary school art display). These stages were programmed using a Gantt-type chart, with a view to minimising competing attractions in the three areas. Where possible, entertainment groups would play for at least two sets, giving visitors the chance to see them at least once. When there could only be one set for example, an energy sapping dance routine nothing was programmed in the competing staging areas. Each area had a stage manager, MC and sound technician. All stage managers were communicating via radio to ensure that each stage's program stayed to time and, where necessary, accommodated and communicated slight changes to timings to facilitate the audience moving from one area to another.

All hired festival structures (marquees and stall tents) were white and unadorned, chosen to purposefully juxtapose, and hence highlight, the heritage environment. These structures were situated in a beautifully re-created 1830's garden; the only site dressing needed was potted Mediterranean plants. These were hired for the weekend and used to soften edges of event structures that appeared too brutal in the environment.

Each stage area was designed with its program requirements, ambience and audience sight-lines in mind. For example, in the talk and taste tent, theatrical lighting was used to ensure the chefs were illuminated to dramatic effect and the cooking cart was elevated to make best use of the overhead mirror that allowed the audience a view of the chef's frenetic workbench. A team of well-trained staff was on hand to ensure the food sampling was orderly, food safety regulations were adhered to at all times and that the Q&A sessions ran smoothly.

Conclusion

Despite Festival of the Olive 2005 competing with three other major events two offering free entry it managed to achieve visitation and revenue targets. In terms of staging, as a result of the festival having been held on four previous occasions, its successful delivery was made much easier. It was primarily a case of an appropriately resourced research and development phase, with tight management controls implemented by the event coordinator, the head of PPU, stage managers and staff allocated to specific event operation roles.

Mark Lillis, Historic Houses Trust

The questions are the following:

1. What 4 facets of event design were discussed in this case? (LO2 partial)
2. What are the characteristics of the
3. theme? Why was it selected? And How was that implemented in the venue design? Give examples. (LO1 partial & LO2 partial)
4. How was catering linked to the theme & event concept? (LO2 partial)
5. What were the factors that lead to the venue selection?
6. How have the event organizers managed to have community engagement? (LO1 partial)