national folk festival

The National Folk Festival is a multi-arts festival that highlights traditional and contemporary folk-life and folk arts. The Festival is held every year over the Easter weekend and attracts 50,000 attendees to Canberra.

With a strong volunteer program, the Festival provides opportunities for artists and artisans in a diverse range of styles. The event features music, dance, spoken word, theatre, comedy and traditional crafts.

The Festival has been held since 1967 and was inspired by a couple dozen people wanting to ensure that traditional song and dance from cultures represented in Australia were being shared and continued.

Managing Director Jared Wilkins said that the Festival had continued to grow since 1992, a time that coincided with the establishment of the company National Folk Festival Ltd and the event finding a permanent home in Canberra. The growth and sustainability is attributed to the event’s continued popularity – partly due to the Festival’s ethos of promoting participation and a sense of community.

As a result, in mid 2009, Jared met with David Sharpe, a Business Adviser from the Enterprise Connect initiative’s Creative Industries Innovation Centre (CIIC).

“The organisation has undergone organic growth. There are both rewards and problems because of this. The Business Review enabled an expert to come in and look at the company in business terms rather than artistic terms.

“This, we hoped, would provide valuable information into what we could improve and future directions for the organisation. The review would also provide us with information on how we fit into our industry,” Jared said.

The Business Review process
“All of the staff and some of the key volunteers spent a couple of days talking with our business advisor David. In addition there was a great deal of conversation and the sharing of information and documentation between the advisor and the Managing Director,” Jared said.

The recommendations
The review discovered several key issues for the Festival such as internal process management, internal and external communication issues, the current financial position, the need to review the ticket pricing structure and plan strategically for the future.

The review made the following recommendations – the first three of which are currently being implemented, while 4-6 will be addressed in 2010:

• Undertake a mapping exercise, documenting the roles, responsibilities and activities of the festival’s staff and volunteers.
• Conduct a review of internal and external communications, with the aims of improving internal communications and developing   an external communications strategy.
• Conduct a comprehensive review of the festival's ticket pricing structure, with an aim of increasing the average yield per attendee.
• Draft a financial plan for the period to 2011/12 focusing on returning a surplus and diversifying income sources.
• In conjunction with the board, design and undertake an analysis of the level of financial risk the festival is exposed to from external influences.
• Conduct scenario-planning exercises, attempting to model what impact on the event a number of potential new compliance issues could have.

The value of the review
Jared praised the work of Business Adviser David Sharpe, saying he valued his experience in arts organisations.

“David had no preconceptions about the company or the event and I appreciated his external and unbiased views. His background in arts organisations and ability to mine information on other organisations within our field was highly valuable.  He was able to look at the big picture and to identify some interesting points to me.

“One of the highlights was David’s assumption that the company is much harder on itself than it should be. Strategically, financially and operationally the organisation is in a much better position than others within the sector,” Jared said.

Jared recommended other organisations speak to a CIIC Business Adviser to find out if their company is eligible. “The review is there to not only improve your business through pointing out weaknesses but also to improve your business by highlighting hidden strengths,” he said.