CULTURAL SERVICES COMMITTEE 3 · 7/19/2017 · The 2017 Cairns Children’s Festival was funded through the Tank Arts Centre’s operational budget, income earned from a Regional

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CULTURAL SERVICES COMMITTEE

19 JULY 20173

CAIRNS CHILDRENS FESTIVAL 2017

Claire Heathcock | 79/5/7-01 | #5445741

RECOMMENDATION:

It is recommended that Council notes this Report.

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY:

The fourth annual Cairns Children’s Festival was delivered on Sunday 21 May 2017 at the Tanks Arts Centre and Cairns Botanic Gardens.

The festival was programmed around a thematic focus of putting a spotlight on children. This included a range of new activities, workshops and installations. Furthermore Cultural services invested in creating a locally produced children’s theatre piece; Diamonds Found in Dreams.

Festival attendances increased by 25% on the 2016 event, showing the continued support of this event in the community.

Cultural Services is now looking at the long term development of the event and exploring the possibility of extending the festival over two days to allow for more of the community to attend.

BACKGROUND:

On Sunday May 21 2017 Cultural Services delivered the fourth annual Cairns Children’s Festival at the Tanks Arts Centre and Cairns Botanic Gardens. This year the program was developed around the theme of putting a spotlight on children through visual arts, music, performing arts, film and technology. The program had a strong focus on encouraging children to be the stars, to actively participate in creativity and to see other children in the spotlight.

As a result there was a greater focus and investment in free, interactive activities across the site. In addition the site was expanded into the Botanic Gardens with new activities and installations to accommodate increasing crowd numbers and ease areas where there was congestion during the previous Festivals.

New Activities and program developed for the 2017 Festival program include:

screenPLAY Zone, free family films made by the children of Cairns. screenPLAY included a series of workshops in filmmaking delivered throughout the year for children. Submitted films were displayed on a big screen throughout the day.

Agenda – Cultural Services Committee 19 July 2017 #5484770

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5 Minutes of Fame Stage: a fully produced stage where children registered for a slot to have their five minutes of fame. Performances included singing, dancing, bands and solo instrumentalists.

Creation Stations: artist designed installations that encouraged children to explore, play, discover and create.

Wild Lands: nature play activities based in Flecker Botanical Gardens; including the Physical Art-tivity, clay sculpture, weaving and activities by the Benevolent Society.

Tinkering Tank: creative play activities developed by artists Rosie Miller, India Collins and Priscilla Ong. Little Tinkers (ages two-seven years) and Big Design (ages seven-12 years) areas gave children the opportunity to be part of large scale design and art installations, which was the prototype of a Commonwealth Games Festival activity of similar intent.

In addition to these activities there was also the Story Tree delivered with Cairns Libraries, dance and drumming workshops delivered by ARC Disability Services, the Green Zone with Family Day Care, an education maze created by the Benevolent Society and ticketed show, Noodlenut, by well-known Australian comedian, Frank Woodley.

Diamonds Found in Dreams is a locally produced children’s circus/theatre piece developed in partnership with Cultural Services and Koah based Dream State Circus. This is the first time Cultural Services has invested in developing local children’s theatre content and was deemed a great success. Cultural Services is now supporting Dream State Entertainment to tour the product around Australia.

As part of this partnership Cultural Services invested in a dramaturg, artist fees for a creative development week and additional tech support for a full week of rehearsals in Tank three. Cultural Services would like to continue to use Cairns Children’s Festival as a platform for supporting the development of new local children’s content.

Another key change was a re-branding of the festival with the development of new characters who will be the long-term ambassadors of the event.

People counters spread across the site indicated that approximately 5,500 people were onsite throughout the day, a 25% increase on last year’s figures.

Finances

The 2017 Cairns Children’s Festival was funded through the Tank Arts Centre’s operational budget, income earned from a Regional Arts Fund grant for activities delivered for the Tinkering Tank and ticketing income.


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Actuals Budget Variance

Operating Income Regional Arts Fund (RAF) Grant 16,706 16,706 0Ticketsales (Noodlenut and Diamonds Found in Dreams) 15,300 18,000 -2,700Workshop Fee's 1,200 0 1,200TOTAL INCOME 33,206 34,706 -1,500

Operating ExpensesEmployee Costs 13,923 18,656 4,733Entertainer Services 54,112 43,988 -10,124Marketing Costs 19,066 20,000 934Promotional Materials 4,549 440 -4,109Other Materials and Services 6,480 6,895 415TOTAL EXPENSES 98,130 89,979 -8,151

NET GAIN / (LOSS) -64,924 -55,273 -9,651

External In-Kind ContributionsPakmag Parent Room 4,500Pakmag Advertising Sponsorship 3,500Family Day Care 1,500Benevolent Society 1,500TOTAL EXTERNAL IN-KIND CONTRIBUTIONS RECEIVED 11,000

TOTAL IN-KIND 11,000

Note additional expenditure on this year’s program was in four key areas:

1. $12,000 on Tinkering Tank program made possible through RAF Grant2. $4,500 on free programming across extended site. 3. $6,500 on creative development and technical support for Diamonds Found in

Dreams4. $6,000 expenditure on re-branding the festival, these funds were made available

from savings in other areas of marketing expenditure.

Please note – wages for non-technical and non- contract staff have not been included in the above budget due to the fact that Cairns Children’s Festival is the culmination of an involved program of events which run throughout the Tanks yearly program.

COMMENT:

A 25% increase in attendance numbers to the 2017 Cairns Children’s Festival demonstrates the continued and growing support of this event in the Cairns Community. Going into its fifth year the Cultural Services team have now established a strong foundation of events, activities and programs that promote creativity to families from across the region.

Currently it is intended that the festival will grow to a two day event in 2018 and then a multi-venue and multi-day event in 2019 with the opening of the Cairns Performing ArtsCentre precinct.


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OPTIONS:

1. That Council notes the report.

2. That Council requests additional information / clarification about a specific aspect of the program.

CONSIDERATIONS:

Corporate and Operational Plans:

Corporate Plan Section 4. Community & Culture

5. Serving the Community

CONSULTATION:

Critical feedback was sought from all event delivery partners including some who have worked on the festival since 2012. As always Cultural Services will focus on improvements to the event, however overall feedback was very positive with people noting in particular:

The range of free activitiesThe new site layout and eased congestionLoved seeing kids on the screen and on the stage

ATTACHMENTS:

Attachment 1: Festival Program and Photos

Roz PappalardoArtistic Director Cultural Services

Stephen FosterManager Cultural Services

Linda KirchnerGeneral Manager Community, Sport and Cultural Services


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Attachment 1


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Creation Stations


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5 Minutes of Fame Stage (Tanks Arts Centre Promenade)

screenPLAY Zone


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Physical Art-tivity in Wild Lands (Flecker Gardens)

Forest Friends in Wild Lands (Flecker Gardens)


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Tinkering Tank (Tank 4)


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Diamonds Found in Dreams (Tank 3)


Documents

CULTURAL SERVICES COMMITTEE 3 · 7/19/2017 · The 2017 Cairns Children’s Festival was funded through the Tank Arts Centre’s operational budget, income earned from a Regional