“The best time to experience Sydney is January, when the entire city is drunk on the arts for Sydney Festival.� Cult Magazine, November 2012
special thanks Sydney Festival acknowledges the traditional custodians and elders of the Eora nation and the Gadigal people upon whose land and water much of the Festival takes place. Thank you to all the elders and board members of the Metropolitan Local Aboriginal Land Council for your advice and guidance. Sydney Festival Patron Her Excellency Professor Marie Bashir AC CVO, Governor of New South Wales Board of Directors President The Hon. Barry O’Farrell MP Premier of New South Wales and Minister for Western Sydney Chair Clover Moore, Lord Mayor of Sydney Directors The Hon. George Souris MP Monica Barone Simon Corah Matthew Melhuish Sam Weiss Geoff Wilson Alternate Directors The Hon. Ashley Dawson-Damer (for The Hon. Barry O’Farrell MP) Mary Darwell (for The Hon. George Souris MP) Ann Hoban (for Monica Barone) Nell Schofield (for the Lord Mayor of Sydney)
Sydney Festival Staff Festival Director Lieven Bertels Executive Director Christopher Tooher Administration Financial Controller Tanya Bush Accountant Caroline Brosnan Payroll Carina Mision Executive Assistant Rachael McNally Executive Projects Coordinator Fiona Jackson Administration Officer Julie Gock Receptionist Melissa McShane Fleur Stevenson
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Programming Head of Programming Fiona Winning Producer, Major Outdoor Events Vernon Guest Program Manager Danni Colgan Programming Associate Adam McGowan Special Projects Loretta Busby Project Manager Heather Muirhead Music Coordinator Rachel Grimes Music Program Assistant Leah Flanagan Programming Coordinators Sam Hawker Geraldine Timmins Program Administrator Alice O’Reilly Marketing Head of Marketing, Communications and Digital Strategy Jill Colvin (until 8 Feb 2013) Tina Walsberger (from 8 Feb 2013) Marketing Manager Derek Gilchrist Marketing Coordinator Alicia Kish Digital Marketing Manager Julia Thomas Digital Marketing Assistant Sam Bell Publicity Manager Mary Stielow Publicists Jessica Keirle Julia Lenton Graphic Designer Camille Manley Signage Coordinator Kate Williams Public Relations Lyndel Fehrer (The Fresh Group) Janet Glover (Janet Glover PR and Events) Festival Design Agency Alphabet Studio Volunteer Management Eventeamwork
Ticketing Ticketing and Planning Manager Simon Keen Box Office Manager Jennifer Laing Ticketing Guest Services Coordinator Richard Cox Ticketing Operations Coordinator James Woolley Ticketing Assistants Vanessa Knox Matthew Vierboom Corporate Partnerships Head of Corporate Partnerships Sasha Degen Corporate Partnerships Managers Amy Doherty Emma Rigney Corporate Partnerships Executive Amalina Whittaker Corporate Partnerships Coordinators Chelsea Dunsire Jane You Corporate Partnerships Operations Coordinator Lara Watts External Relations and Philanthropy Head of External Relations and Philanthropy Malcolm Moir Production Head of Production John Bayley Production Manager Mick Jessop Production Coordinators Alycia Bangma Paul Bearne Catering and Sustainability Manager Fernando Motti Producer – Operations, Major Outdoor Events Margot Natoli Production Assistant Jemima Hogg Logistics Assistant Kim Straatemeier Transport Coordinator Nathalie Taylor Crewing Coordinator Shireen McNeilage
Domain Staff Domain Manager Tim Pack Senior Site Manager Damon Jones Site Construction Manager Peter Craig Domain Coordinator Malinny Cheng Electricians Craig Adamson Ian Godfrey Thank You Accessible Arts, Pierre Ballings, Sara Bradshaw, Peter Della Tolla, Jan Dietvorst, Peter Freedman, Omer-Jean Vander Ghinste, Inge Govaerts, Bill Harris, Mieke Lapauw, Katie Pack, Josephine Ridge, Zan Rowe, J.P. Tanghe, Ralph van Dijk, Vision Australia, Megan Washington, Sarah Wilson, Dan Zilber
Sydney Festival interns Lucy Allman Daniela Arsenis Emily Boulton Harriet Cheney David Cherrie Tom Cramond Sally Crawford Marc De Liseo Lauren Eisinger Lydia Feng Emma Froggatt Wei Ning Ho (Ning Ning) Emily Hull Stephanie Langridge Lise Lecerf Serene Lodhia Tania Loiseau Annabelle McMillan Melissa McShane Halil Mehmet Larissa Moore Celia Mortlock Lawrence Muskitta Anthony Napoli Aaron Ng Nathan Olivieri Kenneth Statham Greta Stevens Stephanie Swanson Lucy Tann Sabia Vardy Laura Wiadrowski Brooke Yallop Tamasin Young Sophie Zhang
CONTENTS 01 A Message from the Festival Director 02 Snapshot 03 Audience Profile Summary Visitor Origin Visitor Income Age of Visitors 04 Artistic Focus Transforming Spaces Live Music Across all Art forms The Return of Opera
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05 Accessibility Attendance at Free Events Affordable Options Disability access
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06 Sustainability 07 Marketing, Communications &Digital Strategy Branding & Campaign Elements Digital Strategy Publicity 08 Corporate Partnerships 09 Philanthropy, Donations & Volunteers
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Dawn Calling, Sydney Opera House, photo Jamie Williams.
01 This was our summer A message from the festival director
Sydney Festival is a unique and playful celebration of summer in Sydney. It lets us reconnect with our inner creativity, provides food for thought and inspiration for life. It boosts our city’s mojo and brings us together to share intense, amazing moments. The Festival celebrates summer, art and life in Sydney, engaging with audiences and artists across the city and beyond. We offer a colourful kaleidoscope, where the experience transcends the sum of its parts. These parts were of course manifold: from a giant Rubber Duck in Darling Harbour to a Handel-Westwood opera spectacular, the 2013 Sydney Festival truly had something for everyone. With a vast array of cultural and entertaining offerings across Sydney, our Festival reached well over half a million people directly and many more online across the globe. The Festival demonstrated its unique ability to activate unusual and often surprising spaces and embraced its catchline This is Our City in Summer with a diverse and buoyant program. Together with our artists and hundreds of volunteers we presented an ambitious program that delighted our audiences with small and big surprises. We were pleased to see that our quest to bring back opera and highlight the joy of live music in dance and theatre, as well as in concert, was well-received.
Sydney Festival 2013 was made possible through the generous funding from its principal stakeholders the NSW Government – supporting the Festival through Arts NSW and Destination NSW – alongside City of Sydney and Parramatta City Council. The Festival was delighted to see the return of principal sponsor ZIP Industries and leadership partners ANZ and China Southern Airlines, as well as Honda through the Honda Festival Garden. Sydney Festival acknowledges the increased and ongoing support of many private donors including its own Directors’ Circle and the Balnaves Foundation. Over its 37-year history, Sydney Festival has become a central force in Australia’s rich cultural life, and a key factor in making Sydney an attractive city for visitors and locals alike. As its seventh Director, I feel privileged to be working with a stellar team of arts professionals to make Sydney Festival the most wonderful summer festival in the world. In this document, we invite you to relive with us the beautiful month of January that Sydney Festival 2013 offered. Lieven Bertels Festival Director 2013–2015
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03 audience profile Sydney Festival and Destination NSW conducted a visitor survey across a number of events, both ticketed and free, at the 2013 Festival. The survey was undertaken both online and in face-to-face interviews, yielding around 2,000 responses.
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Through our broad range of access initiatives, including free events and our Tix for Next to Nix program, the Festival attracts audiences of all ages and income brackets. The 25–34 age bracket is most strongly represented at our free events, while our ticketed events predominantly attract audiences aged 25–54. 14% of attendees at the 2013 Festival described themselves as living outside of Sydney. The factors influencing attendance at Sydney Festival events include the quality of the artistic programming, the entertainment and fun derived from attending, and the uniqueness of the events.
Above: Daptone Super Soul Revue at The Domain, photo Prudence Upton.
04 2013 ARTISTIC FOCUS Above: Concrete and Bone Sessions. Photo Jamie Williams.
Transforming Spaces In 2013, Sydney Festival successfully engaged artists and audiences in the transformation of familiar city spaces. Unexpected events, large and small-scale installations, virtuosic performances and the temporary redesign of everyday spaces invited audiences to see and experience the city anew. The lush formality of Sydney Town Hall was transformed into vastly different architectural and social atmospheres for two major events. Semele Walk, directed by Ludger Engels recast Handel’s opera Semele on a Vivienne Westwood catwalk the length of the Centennial Hall. These performances, held over just four nights, in turn recast Town Hall’s heritage architecture as a site of contemporary baroque spectacle – merging classicism with punk, and fashion with anarchy.
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The very next week, we transformed the same space into Paradiso, the new Festival club and terrace bar, presenting ten nights of top contemporary music artists ranging from Japanese funk and soul band Osaka Monaurail, to Nicolas Jaar’s downtempo electronic music. Free events included the time-travelling dance party Hot Dub Time Machine. Each night, drawing on inspiration from the genres of music on offer, different elements of the sculptural, architectural and lighting design were highlighted to create ten distinct atmospheres. In contrast, the premiere of Concrete and Bone Sessions celebrated the suburban Dulwich Hill skate park as a site of virtuosic physical poetry with skaters, BMX-ers, parkourists and dancers putting their bodies on the line in visceral connection to this place of everyday play.
“...a visual spectacle, impeccably choreographed so that star turns are embedded in and shoot out of the mesmeric poetry of the grand sweeping collective rides and runs that transform the concrete into a magic, enabling vessel.” Realtime 113, February 2013
Large and small-scale outdoor installations in various locations invited audiences to reflect, reimagine or experience new perspectives on iconic and hidden city sites. Florentijn Hofman’s giant bobbing Rubber Duck in Darling Harbour altered the perspective of this busy site for tens of thousands of regular visitors and the tens of thousands who visited especially.
In contrast, multi-media installations in spectacular sites with limited daily visitation, invited audiences to reflect on and reinscribe landscape around Mosman. Harrison Birtwistle’s electronic sound work Chronometer was experienced at the magnificent Georges Heights Lookout. Megan Heyward’s Notes for Walking, delivered on smartphones using locative technologies, offered audiences fragments of imagery and text as they explored the walking tracks and parklands of Middle Head Reserve. The public space at Carriageworks was transformed by the exquisite large-scale installation of domestic artefacts in Waste Not by Song Dong. Carriageworks also felt the buzz of About an Hour, a festival within the Festival, activating all the spaces simultaneously. The surrounding neighbourhood of Erskineville drew audiences to artists’ operatic and social interventions in four tiny often forgotten domestic-scale parks for Performance Space’s Micro Parks.
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Top left to lower right: Rokia Traoré, photo Prudence Upton; The Peony Pavillion, photo Jamie Williams; Charles Bradley and Sharon Jones, Daptone Super Soul Revue, photo Jamie Williams; Parra Opening Party, photo Jamie Williams; Masi, photo Jamie Williams; Richard Hawley at Paradiso at Town Hall, photo Jamie Williams; Semele Walk, photo Prudence Upton; The Blind Date Project, photo Jamie Williams; Eraritjaritjaka, photo Jamie Williams; Symphony, photo Jamie Williams; Rian, photo Jamie Williams.
“The performances were consistently good and, best of all, whether it was dance, theatre or film, the music was live. Adventurous, broad-ranging, inclusive.” The Sydney Morning Herald, 29 January, 2012
Live Music across all art forms We were delighted to focus on live music across much of the programming in 2013. As well as presenting concerts by internationally acclaimed musicians including David Byrne and St. Vincent, Rokia Traoré, The Waterboys, Orchestre National de Jazz, Archie Roach and Sing the Truth – live music was the impetus for many Festival events. DAY ONE: An Opening in Three Acts included the huge outdoor dance party Daptone Super Soul Revue featuring Sharon Jones and The Dap-Kings, Charles Bradley, The Budos Band, and other Daptone artists. Russian alphorn player Arkady Shilkloper greeted Sydney with a Dawn Calling from Bondi Beach, on top of the sails of the Sydney Opera House and other iconic sites throughout the Festival. The world’s largest pyrophone, an installation and enormous musical instrument, burst into life at dusk with flames and irresistible beats at the Parramatta Opening Party.
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Heiner Goebbels’ delicate theatre work Eraritjaritjaka featured music of several 20th century composers played by Amsterdam’s exquisite Mondriaan String Quartet. Shakespeare’s The Rape of Lucrece was spoken and sung by Camille O’Sullivan with original music played by Feargal Murray on piano. Fabulous Beast’s Rian was a celebration of Ireland’s roots and traditions with a beautiful live score by Liam Ó Maonlaí (of Hothouse Flowers fame) mixing Celtic and world music. Raimund Hoghe’s dance work, Sacre – The Rite of Spring marked the one hundred year anniversary of Stravinsky’s composition with music played live by pianists Alain Franco and Guy Vandromme. In contrast, family audiences enjoyed Circolombia’s Urban with its intense live beats and street music of Cali enhancing their extreme physical feats.
We were also excited to bring German conductor André de Ridder to Sydney to work with Sydney Symphony Orchestra and the Sydney Philharmonia Choirs to perform the live score at screenings of Stanley Kubrick’s 2001: A Space Odyssey at Sydney Opera House. De Ridder also conducted Kubrick in The Sound of Kubrick, our 2013 Symphony in The Domain with a selection of scores from other iconic Kubrick films.
05 accessibility Accessibility is central to the Sydney Festival ethos. It is reflected in the commitment to free events, affordable ticket pricing and geographic reach with particular reference to the extension of activities to western Sydney.
Above: Dawn Calling, Bondi, photo Prudence Upton
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attendance at Free events Rubber Duck at Darling Harbour Day One: an opening in three acts Symphony in The Domain Song Dong Summer Sounds in The Domain Francis Bacon Parramatta Opening Party Micro Parks Chronometer Late at Paradiso Parramatta Closing Event Notes for Walking Dawn Calling Wreck Sustainability Forum Late at Spiegeltent Late at Parramatta Spiegeltent Music in the Void Choir in the QVB Yellamundie
198,000 82,000 30,000 25,997 25,000 22,000 18,000 6,426 5,000 5,000 4,000 2,500 2,200 1,563 1,200 1,200 1,000 600 300 200
Affordable options
Disability access
To ensure Festival events are accessible to people of all income brackets, the Festival offers a range of free and lower cost events. This year, 23 free events ran across multiple genres, throughout Sydney and Parramatta. Some ticketed performances were also broadcast free to air via ABC Radio. Our festival within the Festival, About an Hour, was priced at $35 per ticket throughout and a number of special community offers were made for individual shows.
We welcome all visitors to Sydney Festival events and make every effort to ensure that the program is accessible to our whole audience. This principle is not predicated on legislative or regulatory requirements, but rather on the recognition that Sydney Festival is for everyone, regardless of accessibility needs.
The ANZ Tix for Next to Nix is an important cornerstone of the Festival’s commitment to ticket affordability. Every day, for every show, tickets are available from the booth at Martin Place for $25. In 2013, 2,645 tickets were sold.
We aim to offer clear and easily obtained information about accessibility at Festival events and to make our events as broadly accessible as we can. We also work with our external organisations and venues to provide the highest possible levels of accessibility.
2013 was the second Festival for which we offered audio description at events for people with vision impairment. We also offered tactile tours for Semele Walk and the visual arts installation Song Dong’s Waste Not. A new initiative this year was the provision of closed captions on all Festival TV episodes on our website for people who are deaf or hearing impaired and a braille brochure for patrons with vision impairment. Sydney Festival has a comprehensive Disability Action Plan available on our website.
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06 SUSTAINABILITY Sydney Festival’s vision is to be the most sustainable major performing arts festival in Australia. Following a full diagnosis taken by sector specialists in 2012, the Festival set long-term targets to progress towards meeting its goals including compliance with the new international standard ISO 20121 Events Sustainability Management Systems. In May 2012 we nominated a Sustainability Manager and a Sustainability Committee whose focus it was to set and implement a range of sustainability strategies across all Festival departments.
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Actions in 2013 included: • Promotion of more sustainable transport options to Sydney Festival patrons through the provision of bike racks, and encouraging the use of cycling, using public transport or carpooling. • Waste reduction through the use of recycled materials, including the compulsory use of compostable and recyclable food service ware by Festival caterers, provision of re-usable cups at Festival bars, use of recycled paper at the Festival office, refillable water bottles and water stations. • Recycling of materials including Festival signage, cooking oil from Festival venues, use of a worm farm at the Honda Festival Garden and harvesting of rainwater off The Domain stage canopy for use in the Royal Botanic Gardens • printing on sustainably sourced paper stock with printers who meet independently assessed performance measures.
The sustainability forum To help encourage broader discussion around sustainability issues, the Festival presented its second lively and thought-provoking sustainability forum, attracting a group of renowned panellists. Hosted by journalist, TV presenter, blogger and health coach Sarah Wilson, this year’s panel spoke on the topic Whatever happened to “waste not, want not”?, looking at the cost of food waste in Australia and how it extends beyond the financial. In association with the Australian Meat and Livestock Association’s Target 100 program and NSW Environment Protection Authority’s Love Food Hate Waste initiative, the food waste discussion was brought to the fore providing insight into the time, effort, and resources that go into our food, whilst identifying some of the key issues and concerns surrounding what we eat, and what we don’t.
Top left to lower right: Sustainability forum, Whatever happened to “waste not, want not”?, photo Jamie Williams; LED screen at Symphony in The Domain, photo Ernest Fratczak; Sarah Wilson, photo Jamie Williams; Professor John Crawford, photo Jamie Williams; Free valet bike parking at The Domain; photo Ernest Fratczak.
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07 marketing, communications & digital strategy Printed Collateral and Distribution 200,000 copies of a smaller format brochure were printed. A further 380,000 pieces of print collateral were produced, ranging from brochures for the Parramatta and music programs to event-specific leaflets and posters. The main Festival brochure was distributed via Sydney Festival’s postal database, Festival venues, information booths Campaign Elements and at targeted locations across the city. The 2013 Festival’s marketing, communications Additional print was distributed to Festival and digital campaign ran for almost 5 months audiences in January. with an early announcement of 3 key shows (URBAN, Semele Walk and David Byrne & St. Vincent) on September 11, 2012. The full program launched on October 23.
Branding With every new Festival Director, Sydney Festival takes the opportunity to update the company’s branding. Design company Alphabet Studio created a brand new look which is clean and bold, with a strong focus on our playful and interchangeable strapline “This is our city in summer”.
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The Festival’s long-standing partnership with News Limited produced a number of special Festival supplements including a 40-page guide to the 2013 Festival which was inserted into The Sunday Telegraph (with a distribution of 600,000 copies) the week tickets went on sale. Media and Marketing Partnerships News Limited, ABC, JCDecaux, STUDIO TV, APN Outdoor, Rova Media, Sound Alliance, Vice, Foxtel (Channel V and Max), FBi, Time Out Sydney, Executive Channel, Evolution Publishing (LGBTQI Community), New Express Daily (Chinese Community), Fine Music (Radio), Dendy Cinemas.
Outdoor Advertising and Signage • 747 street flags in the City of Sydney, Darling Harbour and Parramatta. • 142 APN Outdoor advertising sites across Sydney CBD, Parramatta and Melbourne. • 240 JCDecaux street furniture advertising sites in CBD and Parramatta. • 2 external supersites, digital displays and welcome banners at Sydney Airport. • 125 Rova Media taxi backs in Sydney, Canberra and Brisbane. • Executive Channel digital advertising spots in Sydney, Melbourne, Brisbane, and Parramatta. • Festival branding in key precincts • Information columns in Sydney CBD, The Rocks and Parramatta. • Event specific and generic banner stands at Festival venues. • Information and ANZ Tix for Next to Nix booths in Martin Place and Circular Quay.
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Online media produced the most coverage of the Festival with 1,866 reports. The Sydney Morning Herald was the leading website with 119 reports followed by The Age, Brisbane Times, The Canberra Times and WA Today. Day One was mentioned in 1,149 reports, well up from 286 reports in 2012 for the first day of the Festival. This was due in great part, to the arrival of the Rubber Duck. The duck was a big hit at Darling Harbour and grabbed headlines around the world from London to Zambia, and New York to Kazakhstan. Another sensation shortly followed with the picture of the Festival’s alphorn-player in Dawn Calling atop the tallest sail of the Sydney Opera House rocketing around the globe.
Building on the success of 2012, the Festival once again used PR Newswire, an international online distribution service, to target media outlets in the USA, the UK and Asia. The custom-built portal for Sydney Festival allowed media to gain access to releases, pictures and videos. In 2013, there were 5,312 unique visitors to the micro-site, up from 2,005 in 2012. There was also a big increase in unique online views of Festival videos from 1,133 in 2012 to 38,448 in 2013. PR Newswire also posted a Festival image on their electronic billboard in New York’s Times Square during peak hour for a week in January.
Key results 5,556 Festival-related articles across print, online, radio and television 174,025,669 accumulated audience/ circulation $20,256,250 in Australian advertising space rate value
Left: Daptone Super Soul Revue, Day One 2013 Media Call Town Hall, photo Prudence Upton. Right: Florentijn Hofman, The Arrival Media Call 2013, photo Jamie Williams.
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08 corporate partnerships Sydney Festival would like to thank our generous, loyal and hardworking partners who contributed $9.3 million in cash and in-kind revenue in 2013.
Above: Symphony in The Domain, photo Ernest Fratczak.
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Partnerships with Sydney Festival are tailored to each of our partners’ needs, responding to key business and communications objectives. We also provide our partners with the opportunity to create unique campaigns that connect with the Festival’s loyal and engaged audience members. Partners benefit from the credibility of aligning with Australia’s leading Festival. They also benefit from being integrated into the Festival’s marketing and media channels and being associated with our government partners and other affiliated organisations. We welcome partnerships that enliven our audience’s imagination during our annual four-month campaign. We collaborate in areas that range from event associations, promotions, product experiences, digital and social media campaigns to B2B networking and memorable hospitality for staff, trade and customers.
We were honoured to welcome new partners for the 2013 Festival including Rekorderlig Cider, Casella Wines, Pinnacle Liquor Group, Clifton Productions, IPOH, NSW Environmental Protection Authority, Merlin Entertainments Group (SEA LIFE Sydney Aquarium), Meat and Livestock Association (Target 100), Decorative Events, Bar Coco, RØDE Microphones and Roses Only. This year our longstanding partner TOGA Hotels generously accommodated our artists and crews, complemented by The Sydney Boulevard Hotel, The Radisson Blue Hotel, Four Points Sheraton and Metro Hotels.
These partners joined our highly valued Principal Partner, Zip Industries, which celebrated its third year with Sydney Festival. We were delighted that Zip presented an exciting innovation to its world class Australian manufactured Zip HydroTap which now offers sparkling water. Our audience experienced a unique product demonstration of this sparkling tap, as well as still filtered water via the Zip Cubes. These stations were located at high traffic Festival precincts such as The Domain, Honda Festival Garden, Parramatta and Paradiso at Sydney Town Hall. Zip’s Festival activations also included participation in Australia Day on Sydney Harbour with one of our much-loved events, the Ferrython. The race was hotly contested by four competing branded ferries ANZ, Honda, China Southern Airlines, and was won by Zip Industries.
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Celebrating its second year of partnership, China Southern Airlines enjoyed a highly successful alignment as presenting partner of the sold-out performances of The Northern Kunqu Opera Theatre’s The Peony Pavilion and The Jade Hairpin. They were also a proud co-presenter of The Domain Concert Series: Summer Sounds and Symphony in The Domain. China Southern Airlines cabin crew welcomed Festival-goers at their marquee, providing our audience with branded paper fans and caps. They also captivated our audience through an integrated social media campaign, offering them the chance to win a range of prizes, from Festival tickets to business class flights to Beijing, Los Angeles and London. The tradition of a playful Festival Garden continued in 2013. A number of signature partners including Honda, Rekorderlig and Casella Wines’ [yellow tail] offered a range of activities and product demonstrations. Honda celebrated its second year with Sydney Festival as naming rights partner for the Honda Festival Garden which featured current car
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models and the innovative HondaTrope – a fairground-like ride which showcased the latest digital and engineering technology to surprise and delight visitors to the Honda Festival Garden. A fleet of highly visible Sydney Festival branded Honda vehicles featured on Sydney’s roads throughout summer and also at key activation locations such as Martin Place. Rekorderlig created the Swedish Cider Garden, while Casella Wines’ [yellow tail] COLOURGLAM offered free makeovers at their branded make-up lounge. Our newest music venue, Paradiso at Sydney Town Hall, delighted audiences with a program of live music in the transformed Heritage Listed building. Pinnacle Liquor Group featured as the venue’s inaugural beer partner and leveraged this opportunity through the Sol Sydney Festival Bar at the venue’s outdoor Terrace Bar. On behalf of all of the Festival team and artists, we would like to thank our partners for their generous and ongoing support and for the crucial role they play in celebrating our city in summer.
09 philanthropy, donations & volunteers Sydney Festival’s program of donations and philanthropy continue to grow in value and importance.
Donations at our free events A much more significant effort was made to invite small donations at the concerts in The Domain and at the opening concert in Parramatta Opening Party. With the help of our Festival volunteers, donations from concert-goers were a much more significant contribution to the 2013 Festival revenue stream. Donors were thanked with a sticker – I (heart) Sydney Festival. Corporate partners rewarded Festival donors with water bottles and picnic blankets. Associate Producers Our tier of Associate Producers is made up of philanthropists who contribute $5,000 to the Festival. Their funds are aligned with Sydney Festival highlight productions that require additional financial support in order to be realised. In 2012, I Am Eora was made possible by the commitment of our inaugural Associate Producers.
Left: Festival volunteers, Day One, The Domain, photo Ernest Fratczak.
In November 2012, at the home of Neil and Diane Balnaves, we announced a major work for 2014 called The Black Diggers. This new work is being produced by Sydney Festival in association with Queensland Theatre Company and is being conceived and directed
by Wesley Enoch. It will receive significant funding from The Balnaves Foundation. The Festival invited new and existing Associate Producers to support the new work and was delighted with the strong response. Other significant contributions in 2013 came from: • Mr Peter Hunt AM who contributed to initiatives that improved access to Festival audiences such as translation services and tactile tours for people with vision impairment. • Mr Robert Albert AO and Mrs Libby Albert who provided funds to bring the world renowned Alphorn player, Arkady Shilkloper, to the 2013 Festival. Director’s Circle This was the fifth year of the high level Director’s Circle, which involves a multi-year commitment and contributions of more than $20,000 per annum. Membership is tailored for those with a deep personal connection to the vision of Sydney Festival. Sydney Festival is a registered charity and all donations are tax deductible. Please contact the Head of External Affairs and Philanthropy, Malcolm Moir, for further information.
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