In 2019 and 2020, I served as Festival Director for the University of Newcastle’s School of Creative Industries Annual Festival. The festival focus was an exchange between graduates, industry and community. The festival program running over five days saw exhibitions, screening and performances held across the city’s creative precinct. The role involved working over a twelve month period with students and staff from across the Visual Communication Design, Music and Performing Arts as well as Creative Industries, Natural History Illustration and Visual Arts degree programs to deliver a schedule of graduate, industry and community events. Working with the school’s event team, professional staff and student cohorts, events were planned, developed, promoted and coordinated to maximise the opportunity for exposure and engagement. The Festival branding was developed by student teams working under the guidance of academic staff. A festival website was also developed, again by students working under supervision to apply their skills. Each student team pitched and provided progress updates on the branding and website development reporting to the events teams and Director. In 2019, the opening night of the festival saw 1000 people attend, with 2500 people attending the schedule of events.

In 2020, new challenges arose and the pandemic and saw the festival move online. As Director, I worked with the team, professional and technical staff to develop a plan for a virtual festival. This took considerable initiative, effort and coordination to develop an online platform. The platform incorporated a range of streaming and virtual interactive environments to enable the delivery of a broad range of exhibitions, screening and performance events. This saw the festival reach an international audience, while continuing to engage our regional and domestic communities and industry.