Be Careful What You Wish For: The Pleasures, Perils and Pitfalls of Success

Be Careful What You Wish For: the pleasures, perils and pitfalls of successDate: Monday 30 May 2016

Time: 6pm
Where: The Warrane Theatre, Museum of Sydney
On the site of First Government House
Corner of Bridge and Phillip Streets, Sydney
Admission: Free (SAMAG Members)
Non-member tickets $15.00 and students $7.50 via Eventbrite. 

It can be difficult to make ends meet as a festival, organisation or artist, but we have some of the most exciting, innovative, successful festivals and event programs in the world, so how do they make it work? What should you do when, against all odds, your organisation starts to kick some goals? For this co-presented Vivid Ideas SAMAG discussion, we're bringing together some of the country's best festival directors, producers and curators who have seen their organisations reach a point of success and then thought 'What next?'

Speakers:

• Lisa Dempster, Artistic Director/CEO, Melbourne Writers’ Festival
• Clare Downes, Festival Founder/Director, Secret Garden Festival
• Danielle Harvey Acting Head of Programming, ​Sydney Opera House
• Miles Merrill, Creative Director/Performing Writer, Word Travels
• Chair: Mathieu Ravier, Director, The Festivalists

This will be an inspiring, practical and interactive discussion about how festivals cope with the pressures of larger audiences, funding and logistics. Join us to discuss how to make the most of your successes, big and small, and what success really means for an arts org. We'll get to the heart of how they balance their growth and their creative vision with the constant challenges of producing arts events in today's climate. Is bigger always better? When should you pause and reflect? Can you evolve without moving away from the heart of your event? Can you curate your audience? And how do you make sure you grow in the right way?