Shakespeare on the Bay 2
A big planning brainstorm meeting this week at USQ Fraser Coast on Hervey Bay brought together representatives from Hervey Bay City Council, the local corporate sector, and colleagues from USQ as well as the AD of the Festival, Scott Alderdice, Anne Anderson the Executive Secretary of the Festival, Gary Brady from USQ’s Office of Commercialisation, and myself. The outcome was a great feeling of support and enthusiasm for the project. HBCC has come on board as a key sponsor for the Festival, and given their location in a prime tourism area, this event is seen as a way to attract even more visitors to the region.
It’s heartening when people put their hands up to volunteer time, energy, ideas, and expertise and this is exactly what our supporters and sponsors did on Wednesday. An organising committee for the local event was then formed under Gary Brady’s chairing, and they are up and running to make the inaugural Shakespeare on the Bay a winner! The principal job of this group is to get the word out there and to encourage ticket sales and further support and sponsorship.
The trip up to the Bay was also a great opportunity to walk around the sites again and to get a feel for the place. Scott as AD and Director of Macbeth was keen to ground himself in the spaces again. The Botanical Gardens walk-around threw up some new ideas, and the Sonnets at Breakfast event on Sunday 18 developed as a result, into a much wider treatment than the sonnets, and into a more family-oriented affair with some “displays” of swordplay and scenes from BBS in the gorgeous setting of the gardens.
As I write, 3 months and 16 days until we open in the Park here in Toowoomba. This week, the launch ...
Saturday, 11 November 2006
