March 14, 2024 • 34 mins
Heather Croall AM is an experienced CEO and Director known as a visionary in the creative sector who delivers innovative festival programs, new audiences and organisational growth. Under her leadership, every festival Heather has run has seen an increase in turnover, been met with high critical acclaim, delivered increased ticket sales and expanded audience demographics. Heather embraces adaptive and agile leadership methodologies and is known for implementing innovative digital platforms and systems that drive change and growth. Heather is a filmmaker and has produced and directed documentaries for SBS, ABC, Ch 4 and BBC. She first worked at the Fringe Star Club in the early 1990’s and also ran the film event, Shoot the Fringe from 1992 to 2002, then was Director at the Australian Documentary Conference before going to the UK to take up Festival Director and CEO role at the Sheffield Doc/Fest from 2005 – 2015. Heather then returned to Adelaide to take up the role of Director and Chief Executive in 2015 at Adelaide Fringe. This podcast was recorded in December 2023Women of Influence Podcast with Kate Meade for iHeart Radio & Australian Radio Network. We are on a mission to find the most incredible women. Some we will know, others are going about their daily lives. Everyone has a story.She is a CEO, She is a volunteer, She is a TV host, She is a doctor, an educator, a scientist, a leader. She is just getting on with it. What can we learn from her, what’s her message?Join Kate Meade to celebrate incredible, inspiring women and shine a great big beacon of light on their stories. Let’s learn from the women that are paving the way for us.From KateI love to learn and my favourite way is through storytelling. I am curious - absolutely fascinated - with people's stories. I can’t wait to get to KNOW the person in front of me and HOW they got to be where they are today. Where did they grow up, what gets them excited, why do they do what they do and, when it gets tough… why do they do what they do?This is the Women of Influence Podcast. FOLLOW USInstagram: @womenofinfluencepodacstKate: @kateemeadeEmail: kate@pavely.com.auThe Women of Influence is a partner of iHeart Radio
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:05):
Hey, Heather. I moved to Adelaide in January twenty three
and I have known nobody. It's been a full year
of experiencing this city. And what happened arriving in January
was someone said to me, you just wait, you just
wait until mad March. You're just not going to know
(00:25):
what aret you. And it hit, and it hits with
a force, and it's not really March, is it Really?
It's February, But it's not really February either because it's January,
and then it's like gearing up for it. Fringe is
something that is all year round.
Speaker 2 (00:40):
Oh, it's unbelievable. I mean, the Fringe is a juggernaut
coming down. And when it really hits, when all when
you see all the pop up venues getting built in
the park, when you see everyone transforming their existing venues,
when you see the outdoor dining just starting to roll
out piazzas style European version across all the streets. It's yeah,
(01:04):
it's really something, isn't it. And it's only possible because
it is truly a grassroots up collaboration between thousands and
thousands of people. So it's just it's unique in the world.
Speaker 1 (01:19):
A festival for the people, by the.
Speaker 2 (01:21):
People, absolutely, and our founding father was Frank Ford, who
we all miss so much and was taken away early
from us a few years ago. He was he coined
the phrase the People's Festival for the fringe back in
way back, and so he was involved from very early on.
(01:44):
And that's what it was always meant to be. That
it was meant to be a festival that's very inclusive.
Anyone who wants to put on a show can put
on a show. Anyone who wants to see a show
can see a show. We're try and make it affordable,
make it accessible, and hopefully enough people come and see
every single show so that everyone has a great time.
Speaker 1 (02:06):
Now, I want to know, we'll talk more about the
festival as a whole, but you as a person. Now,
forgive me, but I have described you, not meeting you
properly until today, as the goddess of arts in Adelaide,
and I know that sounds very big, but you bring
(02:27):
with you this energy and a belief in people and
carefully picking and choosing and placing the right people and
the right venues together, and that's a real skill. When
you were a child, I mean, what did Heather want
to be? Because you don't just turn into this goddess
of the arts. You know. Sorry to give you this
(02:47):
big title, but you've been given a few this year.
This title. What did little Heather want to Do?
Speaker 2 (02:54):
Yeah, it's funny. I had down the road from us.
I grew up in Wayala and down the road from
us in Whale. Whaler was a town full of young
people in those thriving It's hard to imagine. It was
when the shipyards were going and the steel work yards everything.
Everyone had a job. It was a very thriving, working
class town. And I and the young town lots of teachers, nurses, everything.
(03:18):
So it was a fun town to grow up. And
there was a young couple down the road and I
just decided they were my parents more than my own parents.
I just loved them, and they were They had a
couple of little toddlers. I was about eight or something,
and I used to go down and convert their create
adventure playgrounds in their back garden, and just the whole
(03:41):
neighborhood would come around and we would just build what
sort of looking back now, it is a bit of
a festival experience that we were building for all the
kids of the neighborhood, and there was kids everywhere, and
we used to have so much fun, like building these
obstacle courses and put on shows. And I was very
(04:02):
much a bit of a director in those days too,
even when I was eight or nine probably, and the
woman who Judy, who was that woman? She used to
always say, even when you were eight or nine, you
were directing everybody and pulling everyone together and getting someone
to be on stage. And I wasn't really ever someone
(04:22):
that got up on stage myself. So and I then
went on to become you know, as I graduated from
school and went on to study, and so when I
became a filmmaker, so I was a documentary maker.
Speaker 1 (04:35):
So I was.
Speaker 2 (04:35):
Always behind the scenes, but always making things happen and
bringing stories together and never really wanting to be on
the camera myself. I liked being behind the camera and
making things happen. And that, yeah, that led to me
being a festival director in film festivals. And also alongside that,
(04:58):
even when I was quite young out of school at university,
I used to work at the Adelaide Fringe in the
old days in the early nineties. And I mean even then,
even though Fringe was a lot smaller than I still
used to just absolutely love it even in those days,
and I was part of an amazing venue that was
(05:19):
a really pivotal It will be a venue that I
think quite a lot of people will remember. It was
called the Star Club, and the Star Club was where
Stomp played, and you know, all these big smash hits
came to Adelaide that year, and the Star Club just
took the city by storm, and it took the Fringe
(05:39):
up a whole new level. And I just happened luckily
to be one of the managers in that Star Club,
and the connections I made in there just excited me.
And yeah, so I guess all through my life I've
been a bit behind the scenes, but always wanting to
make great stuff happen.
Speaker 1 (05:57):
And sounds like not a backup plan either. It's always
just been the next project, into the next project, into
the next project. For you.
Speaker 2 (06:06):
Yeah, I didn't ever really know. I never understood about
oh I've got a year, a five year plan, or
a ten year plan or anything. And I meet people
that tell me they did do that. Oh wow, I
didn't even didn't even really occur to me. I was
very hungry for life experiences. As soon as I graduated
(06:26):
from high school, I was within weeks I was on
a plane to London. I'd saved up all through the
last few years of high school, and I went to
London just you know, on my own, and went and
just went around Europe. And I was, you know, probably
sixteen seventeen years old, but I just absolutely couldn't wait
to get out there and explore the world, and didn't
(06:49):
really have any sense that, oh, maybe you should not
do that until later, or maybe you should finish your
degree first, or but then I did come back and
study after that. But I always, yeah, going fast. I
think I've always gone pretty quickly, and still to this day,
I'll probably go a bit too quick.
Speaker 1 (07:10):
Behind the scenes is a magic that not everyone does
know about until you've maybe done that work in that space.
But it's like this storm that's raging around you, and
not in a bad storm. It's this wonderful everyone's doing
their bit, and it's busy and it's hectic, and there
probably is some disaster that's happening, but there's also that
(07:32):
moment of pause before the ship is about to leave
the dock and you have to it's it's going, whether
it's ready or not ready. What has been one of
those moments for you, it's just about to go that
you've you've literally pinched yourself and said, I can't believe
this is happening. I can't believe.
Speaker 2 (07:52):
It that happened. Yeah, I mean that is you've just
described my life regularly, where yeah, you have to be
willing to accept that there is a lot going on.
There's a lot of uncertainty and a lot of stuff
is swirling around and you don't know everything. It's not
all in set in stone. Of course, there's certain schedules,
(08:13):
but really you still have the creativity and this collaboration
that is going at a speed and unexpected things are happening.
I remember on a project that I commissioned and co produced,
really when I was a director of a festival in
England and I was working with Javis Cocker, who's the
(08:37):
lead singer of Pulp Massive Massive band in the UK,
and we were working together on a film that was
archival footage and he was making the soundtrack and he
said to me, I'll do this project with you, but
I need to be allowed to have creative control totally
(08:57):
of the soundtrack, and I said, one hundred percent got creative.
Was there a little bit when you said yes, I
was like, well, I just didn't know what he wanted.
He just he said, I'm not sure what I want
to make or anyway, fast forward, we were at the
opening night of the festival. He had sixty two musicians
on stage, and each one of them was playing a
(09:19):
different chapter in the film. So there was an orchestra,
a small, smallish orchestra. There was a there was a choir,
there was a full Pulp bat the whole all the
members of Pulp were there. There was a harpist. There
was so many musicians, and they'd all rehearsed their own
little bit of the film, but they'd never been able
(09:40):
to get into the same round. I'm all in one,
and so at about three o'clock the play, it was chaos.
They started. The whole thing didn't work. I was like,
oh my god, we've got a sold out theater tonight. Anyway,
it was an incredible it went off.
Speaker 1 (09:57):
It just was perfect.
Speaker 2 (09:59):
Javis. I was being a conductor with kung fu kicks
and showing you know, it was amazing, and it got
a massive standing ovation and it was a magical moment
where this history of it was actually about the history
of steel because he grew up in a steel town
in Sheffield. This whole beautiful archive footage from the BFI
(10:21):
rolling on the screen, and this amazing sixty two musicians
on stage, and how it all came together, I don't know,
because three hours earlier it didn't look like it would.
But I had to try, you know, obviously trust and
then it teaches you resilience. It teaches you to breathe.
And it also that they say it's going to be
(10:41):
all right on the night and the show must go on.
Speaker 1 (10:43):
And there is.
Speaker 2 (10:45):
Something about creative people, you know, working with someone as
professional as Jarvis is, there is something about the way
they approach the creativity in the chaos and when it
all comes together, it just they look at you and
it's like, yeah, it was always going to come together.
But he did actually come up to me and say
(11:06):
thank you, because you know, he was surprised that I
didn't ever say, hey, like is this going to be okay?
I just breathed and said it's going to be alright.
So I had a lot of I mean, I've got
so many That was just the one example that came
to mind when you said that, But so many examples
of how there's so many people running around even minutes
(11:28):
before the curtain, even minutes and when people are arriving
and you know, people are still building final little pieces
of a show, and then the illusion of it all
is that you it starts and you have no idea
what was just happening half an hour ago.
Speaker 1 (11:43):
That is the addiction to live, theater, dance, any type
of performance. Right, Yeah, Oh, I just and what you've
described to is true trust between reducer director and the artist.
Was without that, as you said, you knew instinctively, I
just need to breathe through this and not you might
(12:04):
have had all the questions running through your head and
all of this, you know, like and keeping the back
end everyone else saying everyone be calm yet be totally
fine here and letting them do that. They also earn
their right to have that kind of privilege as well,
don't they. Yeah, they are confident in what they're doing
and they've done it for many years. They've got the
runs on the board. I think.
Speaker 2 (12:23):
Yeah, the trust is really important and there's really not
much you're not going to achieve a lot by going
in and saying, right, we need to know this is happening.
Now there's you know, obviously this is not a space
for a lot of that. That's not really how you're
going to get the best out of it. And but
(12:43):
it does mean being willing to take a risk. You
have to, you have to have an appetite for risk.
I think innovation really only comes from being willing to
sit to know that you don't really know a lot
of uncertain being willing to sit in uncertainty, not knowing
(13:04):
for sure. And when I mean, one thing I've done
a lot in my life is I've brought a lot
of artists and creatives and people from different disciplines together
to make totally new work. So I might bring in
games designers to work with scientists as well as musicians.
(13:26):
And so that's where I think the alchemy of that
is where you really get unexpected innovation and you don't
even know what's going to come out of that, and
what emerges out of that is something that's not really
that you could have written at the beginning. And we've
(13:46):
done a lot of those projects in the Adelaide Fringe,
where we've done the big drone shows, we didn't. We
went in very collaborative, very open minded, with the pilots,
the drone pilots, the anime, the musicians. Together we made
things that were beautiful, but we didn't know exactly what
(14:06):
we were making when we started. And we've got some
of those, you know, shows like that this year as
well at the Fringe and some shows that are using
incredible technology. Projections is something I've worked in a lot
in my life because my background is filmmaking and festivals,
and when you bring that together, it's a lot of
We've done a lot of big architectural projections on North
(14:30):
Terraces and things like that. In twenty sixteen we did
the Fringe Illuminations and you just couldn't move on North
Terror as amazing, like so many people, you just couldn't
move around the pavement because of all the different amazing
artworks that the different creatives made. So, you know, we've
(14:50):
we've got a history of people want Fringe to be
always changed, like doing something new, something innovative, and I've
definitely got a an appetite for that sort of thing,
and I just don't think what we did, we don't
want to roll something out just the same and what
got us here is not going to get us to
the next stage, and so being willing to always, yeah,
(15:13):
have a take a risk.
Speaker 1 (15:15):
There's a energy about you. It comes definitely from me
and starts coming out when you get talking about that,
you know, the vision and growing growth. I remember speaking
with Gay Waterhouse, you know, horses and what she's looking
for in a horse Probably a bad analogy, but you
(15:36):
know she said, I'm looking for temperament, and I'm looking
for this and that. When you're looking at a show,
whether it's on paper or at an artist that's come
and you know you had a side little pits with
you walking along the street, or or you've been overseas
to check something out, what's your spidery sense looking for
that you think this needs to be showcased at the Fringe.
Speaker 2 (15:58):
Well, I mean overalls. There's a couple of things going
on because in the swath of the Fringe shows, I mean,
the Fringe is an open access festival. So on one hand,
we are just absolutely committed to being the most inclusive
festival in the world. So everything goes at Fringe.
Speaker 1 (16:18):
Anything goes over fifteen hundred.
Speaker 2 (16:20):
Yes, I think we're about fourteen hundred and yeah.
Speaker 1 (16:25):
Let's not ruin a good story. I think it's one.
Speaker 2 (16:27):
Thousand and five hundred almost, Yeah, so one thousand, five
hundred shows, and so we are open access. Anyone can
be on. But of course we are chasing shows as well.
And they're those shows that you mean with the spidery
sense of something we haven't seen before, something that's really innovative,
that has often come from a collaboration or an unexpected
(16:51):
piece of you know, you go down the thing with fringe,
you can go down a little aally down into a pacement,
there's a little show and you sit down, Oh, your
mind gets blown, how on earth is this show here?
Or you know, go out. People do shows in the
most unexpected venues. So we're always looking for things that
might surprise and delight but also challenge and people that
(17:15):
are telling in deeply personal and connected stories and help
us see the world in a different way. And that's
an amazing thing that can happen just sitting in going
to a show and you literally will see the world
in a different way. It opens your mind, gets you
thinking differently. So looking for all of those things and
(17:37):
I'm always very excited about the intersection of art and technology.
So I love it when there's something that's a when
an artist is working with a technologist that makes something
immersive or something that makes you have an experience that
you really haven't had before. So I created the interactive
(18:00):
when I arrived as the director of Fringe, and that's
become an amazing stream in the Fringe and the Also,
we've just started to eat and drink when Genre eaten
so many great collaborations between restaurants and bars and cafes
(18:20):
bringing food and drink into the show. And so yeah,
we're always trying to make sure that everyone feels they
can find a space in the Fringe, and whatever wacky
idea they have, we try and make sure it fits
and make sure they can have the best shot at it.
Speaker 1 (18:38):
It's that you're open to making it fit. Oh, yes,
the openness always So I'm hearing a theme of growth
and innovation. Twenty three saw a record amount of tickets sold.
That was an inspiration moment for the Fringe, for the
entire team working out, but for the state. You know
(18:59):
nationally all eyes, how do you back up? How do
you go? Twenty four? How what's next? You know? Nothing
in going to stop us. We've got to go again.
That's you know, not that I want to put any
pressure on you, but that's like the Okay, what are
we you know, how are we going to hit that?
What do we? Yeah? I mean, what do those conversations
(19:21):
look like?
Speaker 2 (19:21):
I get, well, it really took off, like like with
twenty three. We we originally had internally said we thought
we might sell a million tickets by twenty twenty five
or something like that. But I just got a little
bit caught up in this because last year, at the
beginning of the program launch, we was thinking eight hundred
(19:42):
thousand tickets. It just didn't sound as you know, exciting,
right like, it's not all that.
Speaker 1 (19:47):
I'm sorry, it's still very sick.
Speaker 2 (19:49):
But I thought, I we'll just go for a million.
So I said, we're going to aim for a million,
and everyone's like, Heather, it's a couple of years ahead
of what we were aiming for.
Speaker 1 (19:57):
And by the way, Heather, not that I want to
really introduce into interrupt you, but you do know that
when you say words out to the universe that actually
what happened. That is what happened. So you're a very
smart woman. You should have known this.
Speaker 2 (20:14):
And so then it just became this thing that everyone
was talking about, We're going to have a million tickets
and so then it was like, well, how can we
what's the call to action that we can put out
there to make everyone realize that they can all play
a part in this. And we were saying, well, actually,
if everyone just who normally goes to fringe and just
brings an extra friend who hasn't been before, and if
(20:37):
everyone buys one more ticket than they usually do, we
are going to hit this target. And that wasn't until
the last few days and then we realized, oh, we're
so close. Now we're going and we did it on
the Sunday, the final Sunday, and it was I would
walk down the street and people strangers were coming up
to me saying, I'm going to go to the extra show.
I'm going to go because so we really hit a
(21:00):
Everyone sort of really gone on with this concept that
we could all do this together together. And that's the
beauty of the Adelaide Fringe. It is the people's festival.
Everybody did it together. There's no festival that Adelaide comes
alive in in that way that the Fringe just brings
everyone out. And then they were like we can make
this happen. And we were the first event in the
(21:24):
entire history of a Stray to sell a million tickets,
and I think I have no doubt we'll be smashing
it again because right now I just checked before I
came here, we compared to this day last year, we're
twenty five percent up on ticket sales. Now that doesn't mean,
you know, that's we've got a long way to go, obviously,
but generally every year the pattern is set quite early.
(21:48):
We can see the pattern. If we start at ten percent,
fifteen percent up, we generally end there. We might end
say fifteen percent up or something like that. Well that
would mean one point one, you know, one million, one
hundred and fifty thousand. So I'm really confident. I'm confident
Adelaide and South Australians will come out and do it.
(22:10):
I'm really confident that they'll also get all their friends
and family. We're running an incredible ad into State at
the moment, which is all about how you know, the
biggest show on the globe with the massive show you
can In the ad, it's an astronaut that can see
Adelaide fringe from space, so it's really good fun but
(22:31):
those ads that we've been running in the last couple
of years have worked really well to get more interstate
people to come and discover Fringe, and so I think
with a lot of tourists and people being out and
really feeling part of it, I think we will smash
the million tickets again. And the other thing is we've
got a stunning program. It's probably the best program we've
(22:52):
ever had. We've got, you know, as we said, nearly
fifteen hundred shows, almost forty and around about individual performances.
There's all the favorites, aback. I mean, the Garden's got
a great program, Gluttony's got a great program. But there's
loads of other new things as well. We've got an
(23:12):
inflatable church on Light Square.
Speaker 1 (23:16):
Where do you see an inflatable church? Yes, not going
to burn when we stand through, and it's.
Speaker 2 (23:23):
Come and have a fun fake renew your ours and
you know, play have great wedding fun in the Light
Square there. And we've got a fantastic circus in Ellis
Park in the western side. So there's a lot more
all over the city as well. And we've got this
planetarium dome coming to the Freemasons Hall where you can
(23:47):
see all sorts of incredible immersive works underwater, in space
and things. So there's and there's going to be this
amazing light and projection piece in the Botanic Gardens Natural Wonders,
and that's going to be really beautiful under the Stars,
a big outdoor gallery in the gardens under the Stars.
(24:07):
So I feel like we've got a program that's going
to excite everyone, and I think everyone's going to come
out and smash the target. And we just know that
Adelaide comes alive in fringe time like no other time,
and it's not even just for a weekend, for the
entire month.
Speaker 1 (24:27):
I as I said, my first ever fringe experience was
twenty three. I grew up in a small country town
on the Greater Sham Road. I went to a high
school called tim Boone High had amazing teachers Helen Land
and Fiona Lane. And when we were coming through so
about fifteen or sixteen, we did the further Fringe Festival
(24:50):
and they had been here and we had heard about
it as children. So to relive or to finally experience it,
I guess has been this incredible thing. But you know,
as a Victorian kind of coming into the state it
has just been this is the arts capital, this really is.
And I'm probably upsetting every Victorian you know and all this.
(25:14):
You know, very aware of all of that, But I
just think until you have come and experienced this, you
just don't know until you've done it, No, you And
I'm a convert, you know, I will tell everyone now
you know you have to do this and there's something
for the kids and for your parents and for your gut.
And I think that's right.
Speaker 2 (25:34):
I think you have to see it to understand and
believe it. Then of course, having a strong fringe means
there's strong other things. You know, the artists. The fringe
is a launch pad for artists that then go on
and do other shows year round. And the other thing
that happens at fringe is we have hundreds of international
(25:55):
and interstate festival directors and venue curators tell vision program
leads they're all coming to Adelaide Fringe. You never know
who you're sitting next to. You might be sitting next
to someone who's scouting that show to go next up
for Sydney Opera House or a theater in New York,
or a festival in France or an arts center in Singapore,
(26:17):
like the Adelaid, Fringe is a scouting ground for where
people come and find new shows, meet up with new artists,
and so we're yeah, we're a launch pad and you
can be sure that when you see that program go,
you know into State, it's not going to be the
affordable fringe ticket price. So you know, see it first
(26:40):
at the fringe and discover it, discover it together.
Speaker 1 (26:43):
There was some two young lads that had come into
State and they were doing their first show, and we
were in the gardens, I think, just having some food.
That was the other thing. We hadn't decided on what
show to see, so we decided to go and each
and have a little drink and then just kind of
see what was on. You know, we just let it
(27:03):
love at us for the night. And these two young
lads come up and they said itself first first ever friends.
Here's that. They had a little QR code on a
piece of paper and it was up the street, up
the stairs at the little place and they were doing
their marketing, they were doing the producing, they'd written the show,
they were doing the show, they were doing everything. And
I just thought, if you can be a part of
(27:25):
a platform that can give you that experience, there's going
to get nothing stopping you.
Speaker 2 (27:30):
No, that's it. And that's what artists do tell us
as well, they say, you taught me how to do
the producing side. You taught me how to do the
business side. You taught me how to make sure that
I understand marketing so that people actually I get bums
on seats. Because with fringe, of course, the artists, you
know that the shows are earning their box office, they're
not getting paid upfront to be there. So to learn
(27:53):
all of that stuff is invaluable and take that around
the world with you. It's just amazing. All's real, right,
that's it, and you're not you know, it doesn't it's all.
It's becoming a flatter playground. It's not so hierarchical anymore.
You can be your own producer. It doesn't have to
be you know. And so, and that's where you can
(28:14):
learn that sort of thing in the fringe as well.
Speaker 1 (28:17):
Heather, I'm conscious of time. You are a public figure
and much loved here in Adelaide. What does downtime look
for you? Like, seriously, what does it look like when
you know the lights are off for a second and
you get to breathe, because I don't know if you stop,
I don't know if you actually get to pause.
Speaker 2 (28:39):
Yeah, I probably need to pause more, people often tell me.
But I have the thing I love the most is
I just love hot springs, hot tubs. Hot water is
my thing for getting just chilling out. And so when
my partner and I go away anywhere, it's always, without
(29:00):
fail based on are there good hot springs and you know,
whether we go to the go to something, you know,
go and have on send in Japan, or whether we
go to the even you know, just in rural Victoria
there on the coast, go and have some relaxing in
some hot springs there, or even just in a hot
(29:22):
tub at That to me is when I can truly
say I'm not gonna I'm not on the phone, I'm
not worrying about work. I'm just soaking up, soaking in
a hot tub. And we've been all based on most
of our holidays have been based on where can we
just relax in some saunas and some hot tubs and
(29:45):
then often jump in a very cold lake afterwards.
Speaker 1 (29:48):
Which you.
Speaker 2 (29:52):
So that's probably one of our favorite things to do.
But I mean, yeah, I don't feel I don't. I
feel exhausted by it. I get so much of my energy.
I feel like I plug in and get energy from
being part of helping artists, help light up a pathway
(30:14):
for them to make connections they need to make. And
I mean during fringe, I go see a few shows
a night and people say, how do you see so many?
It's I just feel energized by, you know, seeing all
the different shows and try as much as I can
to go to some really diverse venues and go to
We've seen huge growth in the suburbs and the regions.
(30:37):
We've got fringe shows in the far North up at
William Creek, We've got them down the southeast and over
on the air Peninsula and the York Peninsula. So I
try as much as I can to get out there
and see so it's what gives me energy, and I
just the thing I love the most is when I
see artists that have discovered the audience they wanted. I've
(31:00):
found some great people in their audience that might even
be a connection for the future of touring, and that's
just amazing. And Adelaide is playing a massive role in
what appears in other festivals around the world. What appears
in high major venues around the world, and a lot
(31:22):
of it's because they were born here in the Adelaide Fringe.
Speaker 1 (31:26):
Heather, I just the energy that comes off you. I
just how can I help? How can we get involved?
What do we need to do? Number one, I'm thinking
we buy a ticket.
Speaker 2 (31:35):
That's it.
Speaker 1 (31:36):
But what else can we do?
Speaker 2 (31:38):
Well, definitely buy tickets and buy more tickets than you think,
you know, like if you think, oh, well, you know,
maybe you might see three shows in Fringe, go see
five or six. Also, if you want to buy a ticket,
you can you can pay it forward for people that
might not be able to afford to buy a ticket.
That's on our website, so you can buy tickets so
(32:00):
that we then buy tickets for people that can't afford
maybe facing some difficulties, communities that are facing disadvantage. We
do a lot of those ticket buying through the Fringe.
And you can also make a donation, which is a
funding that we use to buy those tickets separately, and
(32:21):
also we give out some grants to artists so that
all keeps the eco sort of system growing and anyone.
The other thing is talk to the artists after the show.
That's an amazing thing about the Fringe. The artists come
and hang out after the show and they love to
talk with you, and you know, spread the word. Put
(32:42):
it on your social media, always spread great news if
you see a great show. Adelaide's in a wow of
a like. The word of mouth is just unbelievable at Fringe,
and you see it in the ticket sales. When something's good,
you can you know it just goes. We also built
make sure you in deep dive into all the filters
(33:05):
and all the things on our website because we've spent
many years trying to make sure that the customer journey
on the ticket buying is great and simple and we
can help you find the show you're looking for rather
than being overwhelmed. And we've added things like near me now,
which would be great for someone to me suited for
your last minute book. And then also if you want
(33:27):
to know what's on on a certain night at a
certain time in a certain genre, we've built all of
that and we've also created a new thing on our
website the last couple of years. We've got the Myfringe Planner,
which if you go in and new just favorite shows
and then you go into my Fringe Planner. It will
help you create a schedule of how you can see
(33:50):
all those shows. So get in there and use all
the things on our website because we've built them for
you to try and help you have a better fringe.
Speaker 1 (33:59):
Well, Heather, thanks, thank you so much for joining us
on the podcast. We've loved having you. Thank you,
Hey, Heather. I moved to Adelaide in January twenty three
and I have known nobody. It's been a full year
of experiencing this city. And what happened arriving in January
was someone said to me, you just wait, you just
wait until mad March. You're just not going to know
(00:25):
what aret you. And it hit, and it hits with
a force, and it's not really March, is it Really?
It's February, But it's not really February either because it's January,
and then it's like gearing up for it. Fringe is
something that is all year round.
Speaker 2 (00:40):
Oh, it's unbelievable. I mean, the Fringe is a juggernaut
coming down. And when it really hits, when all when
you see all the pop up venues getting built in
the park, when you see everyone transforming their existing venues,
when you see the outdoor dining just starting to roll
out piazzas style European version across all the streets. It's yeah,
(01:04):
it's really something, isn't it. And it's only possible because
it is truly a grassroots up collaboration between thousands and
thousands of people. So it's just it's unique in the world.
Speaker 1 (01:19):
A festival for the people, by the.
Speaker 2 (01:21):
People, absolutely, and our founding father was Frank Ford, who
we all miss so much and was taken away early
from us a few years ago. He was he coined
the phrase the People's Festival for the fringe back in
way back, and so he was involved from very early on.
(01:44):
And that's what it was always meant to be. That
it was meant to be a festival that's very inclusive.
Anyone who wants to put on a show can put
on a show. Anyone who wants to see a show
can see a show. We're try and make it affordable,
make it accessible, and hopefully enough people come and see
every single show so that everyone has a great time.
Speaker 1 (02:06):
Now, I want to know, we'll talk more about the
festival as a whole, but you as a person. Now,
forgive me, but I have described you, not meeting you
properly until today, as the goddess of arts in Adelaide,
and I know that sounds very big, but you bring
(02:27):
with you this energy and a belief in people and
carefully picking and choosing and placing the right people and
the right venues together, and that's a real skill. When
you were a child, I mean, what did Heather want
to be? Because you don't just turn into this goddess
of the arts. You know. Sorry to give you this
(02:47):
big title, but you've been given a few this year.
This title. What did little Heather want to Do?
Speaker 2 (02:54):
Yeah, it's funny. I had down the road from us.
I grew up in Wayala and down the road from
us in Whale. Whaler was a town full of young
people in those thriving It's hard to imagine. It was
when the shipyards were going and the steel work yards everything.
Everyone had a job. It was a very thriving, working
class town. And I and the young town lots of teachers, nurses, everything.
(03:18):
So it was a fun town to grow up. And
there was a young couple down the road and I
just decided they were my parents more than my own parents.
I just loved them, and they were They had a
couple of little toddlers. I was about eight or something,
and I used to go down and convert their create
adventure playgrounds in their back garden, and just the whole
(03:41):
neighborhood would come around and we would just build what
sort of looking back now, it is a bit of
a festival experience that we were building for all the
kids of the neighborhood, and there was kids everywhere, and
we used to have so much fun, like building these
obstacle courses and put on shows. And I was very
(04:02):
much a bit of a director in those days too,
even when I was eight or nine probably, and the
woman who Judy, who was that woman? She used to
always say, even when you were eight or nine, you
were directing everybody and pulling everyone together and getting someone
to be on stage. And I wasn't really ever someone
(04:22):
that got up on stage myself. So and I then
went on to become you know, as I graduated from
school and went on to study, and so when I
became a filmmaker, so I was a documentary maker.
Speaker 1 (04:35):
So I was.
Speaker 2 (04:35):
Always behind the scenes, but always making things happen and
bringing stories together and never really wanting to be on
the camera myself. I liked being behind the camera and
making things happen. And that, yeah, that led to me
being a festival director in film festivals. And also alongside that,
(04:58):
even when I was quite young out of school at university,
I used to work at the Adelaide Fringe in the
old days in the early nineties. And I mean even then,
even though Fringe was a lot smaller than I still
used to just absolutely love it even in those days,
and I was part of an amazing venue that was
(05:19):
a really pivotal It will be a venue that I
think quite a lot of people will remember. It was
called the Star Club, and the Star Club was where
Stomp played, and you know, all these big smash hits
came to Adelaide that year, and the Star Club just
took the city by storm, and it took the Fringe
(05:39):
up a whole new level. And I just happened luckily
to be one of the managers in that Star Club,
and the connections I made in there just excited me.
And yeah, so I guess all through my life I've
been a bit behind the scenes, but always wanting to
make great stuff happen.
Speaker 1 (05:57):
And sounds like not a backup plan either. It's always
just been the next project, into the next project, into
the next project. For you.
Speaker 2 (06:06):
Yeah, I didn't ever really know. I never understood about
oh I've got a year, a five year plan, or
a ten year plan or anything. And I meet people
that tell me they did do that. Oh wow, I
didn't even didn't even really occur to me. I was
very hungry for life experiences. As soon as I graduated
(06:26):
from high school, I was within weeks I was on
a plane to London. I'd saved up all through the
last few years of high school, and I went to
London just you know, on my own, and went and
just went around Europe. And I was, you know, probably
sixteen seventeen years old, but I just absolutely couldn't wait
to get out there and explore the world, and didn't
(06:49):
really have any sense that, oh, maybe you should not
do that until later, or maybe you should finish your
degree first, or but then I did come back and
study after that. But I always, yeah, going fast. I
think I've always gone pretty quickly, and still to this day,
I'll probably go a bit too quick.
Speaker 1 (07:10):
Behind the scenes is a magic that not everyone does
know about until you've maybe done that work in that space.
But it's like this storm that's raging around you, and
not in a bad storm. It's this wonderful everyone's doing
their bit, and it's busy and it's hectic, and there
probably is some disaster that's happening, but there's also that
(07:32):
moment of pause before the ship is about to leave
the dock and you have to it's it's going, whether
it's ready or not ready. What has been one of
those moments for you, it's just about to go that
you've you've literally pinched yourself and said, I can't believe
this is happening. I can't believe.
Speaker 2 (07:52):
It that happened. Yeah, I mean that is you've just
described my life regularly, where yeah, you have to be
willing to accept that there is a lot going on.
There's a lot of uncertainty and a lot of stuff
is swirling around and you don't know everything. It's not
all in set in stone. Of course, there's certain schedules,
(08:13):
but really you still have the creativity and this collaboration
that is going at a speed and unexpected things are happening.
I remember on a project that I commissioned and co produced,
really when I was a director of a festival in
England and I was working with Javis Cocker, who's the
(08:37):
lead singer of Pulp Massive Massive band in the UK,
and we were working together on a film that was
archival footage and he was making the soundtrack and he
said to me, I'll do this project with you, but
I need to be allowed to have creative control totally
(08:57):
of the soundtrack, and I said, one hundred percent got creative.
Was there a little bit when you said yes, I
was like, well, I just didn't know what he wanted.
He just he said, I'm not sure what I want
to make or anyway, fast forward, we were at the
opening night of the festival. He had sixty two musicians
on stage, and each one of them was playing a
(09:19):
different chapter in the film. So there was an orchestra,
a small, smallish orchestra. There was a there was a choir,
there was a full Pulp bat the whole all the
members of Pulp were there. There was a harpist. There
was so many musicians, and they'd all rehearsed their own
little bit of the film, but they'd never been able
(09:40):
to get into the same round. I'm all in one,
and so at about three o'clock the play, it was chaos.
They started. The whole thing didn't work. I was like,
oh my god, we've got a sold out theater tonight. Anyway,
it was an incredible it went off.
Speaker 1 (09:57):
It just was perfect.
Speaker 2 (09:59):
Javis. I was being a conductor with kung fu kicks
and showing you know, it was amazing, and it got
a massive standing ovation and it was a magical moment
where this history of it was actually about the history
of steel because he grew up in a steel town
in Sheffield. This whole beautiful archive footage from the BFI
(10:21):
rolling on the screen, and this amazing sixty two musicians
on stage, and how it all came together, I don't know,
because three hours earlier it didn't look like it would.
But I had to try, you know, obviously trust and
then it teaches you resilience. It teaches you to breathe.
And it also that they say it's going to be
(10:41):
all right on the night and the show must go on.
Speaker 1 (10:43):
And there is.
Speaker 2 (10:45):
Something about creative people, you know, working with someone as
professional as Jarvis is, there is something about the way
they approach the creativity in the chaos and when it
all comes together, it just they look at you and
it's like, yeah, it was always going to come together.
But he did actually come up to me and say
(11:06):
thank you, because you know, he was surprised that I
didn't ever say, hey, like is this going to be okay?
I just breathed and said it's going to be alright.
So I had a lot of I mean, I've got
so many That was just the one example that came
to mind when you said that, But so many examples
of how there's so many people running around even minutes
(11:28):
before the curtain, even minutes and when people are arriving
and you know, people are still building final little pieces
of a show, and then the illusion of it all
is that you it starts and you have no idea
what was just happening half an hour ago.
Speaker 1 (11:43):
That is the addiction to live, theater, dance, any type
of performance. Right, Yeah, Oh, I just and what you've
described to is true trust between reducer director and the artist.
Was without that, as you said, you knew instinctively, I
just need to breathe through this and not you might
(12:04):
have had all the questions running through your head and
all of this, you know, like and keeping the back
end everyone else saying everyone be calm yet be totally
fine here and letting them do that. They also earn
their right to have that kind of privilege as well,
don't they. Yeah, they are confident in what they're doing
and they've done it for many years. They've got the
runs on the board. I think.
Speaker 2 (12:23):
Yeah, the trust is really important and there's really not
much you're not going to achieve a lot by going
in and saying, right, we need to know this is happening.
Now there's you know, obviously this is not a space
for a lot of that. That's not really how you're
going to get the best out of it. And but
(12:43):
it does mean being willing to take a risk. You
have to, you have to have an appetite for risk.
I think innovation really only comes from being willing to
sit to know that you don't really know a lot
of uncertain being willing to sit in uncertainty, not knowing
(13:04):
for sure. And when I mean, one thing I've done
a lot in my life is I've brought a lot
of artists and creatives and people from different disciplines together
to make totally new work. So I might bring in
games designers to work with scientists as well as musicians.
(13:26):
And so that's where I think the alchemy of that
is where you really get unexpected innovation and you don't
even know what's going to come out of that, and
what emerges out of that is something that's not really
that you could have written at the beginning. And we've
(13:46):
done a lot of those projects in the Adelaide Fringe,
where we've done the big drone shows, we didn't. We
went in very collaborative, very open minded, with the pilots,
the drone pilots, the anime, the musicians. Together we made
things that were beautiful, but we didn't know exactly what
(14:06):
we were making when we started. And we've got some
of those, you know, shows like that this year as
well at the Fringe and some shows that are using
incredible technology. Projections is something I've worked in a lot
in my life because my background is filmmaking and festivals,
and when you bring that together, it's a lot of
We've done a lot of big architectural projections on North
(14:30):
Terraces and things like that. In twenty sixteen we did
the Fringe Illuminations and you just couldn't move on North
Terror as amazing, like so many people, you just couldn't
move around the pavement because of all the different amazing
artworks that the different creatives made. So, you know, we've
(14:50):
we've got a history of people want Fringe to be
always changed, like doing something new, something innovative, and I've
definitely got a an appetite for that sort of thing,
and I just don't think what we did, we don't
want to roll something out just the same and what
got us here is not going to get us to
the next stage, and so being willing to always, yeah,
(15:13):
have a take a risk.
Speaker 1 (15:15):
There's a energy about you. It comes definitely from me
and starts coming out when you get talking about that,
you know, the vision and growing growth. I remember speaking
with Gay Waterhouse, you know, horses and what she's looking
for in a horse Probably a bad analogy, but you
(15:36):
know she said, I'm looking for temperament, and I'm looking
for this and that. When you're looking at a show,
whether it's on paper or at an artist that's come
and you know you had a side little pits with
you walking along the street, or or you've been overseas
to check something out, what's your spidery sense looking for
that you think this needs to be showcased at the Fringe.
Speaker 2 (15:58):
Well, I mean overalls. There's a couple of things going
on because in the swath of the Fringe shows, I mean,
the Fringe is an open access festival. So on one hand,
we are just absolutely committed to being the most inclusive
festival in the world. So everything goes at Fringe.
Speaker 1 (16:18):
Anything goes over fifteen hundred.
Speaker 2 (16:20):
Yes, I think we're about fourteen hundred and yeah.
Speaker 1 (16:25):
Let's not ruin a good story. I think it's one.
Speaker 2 (16:27):
Thousand and five hundred almost, Yeah, so one thousand, five
hundred shows, and so we are open access. Anyone can
be on. But of course we are chasing shows as well.
And they're those shows that you mean with the spidery
sense of something we haven't seen before, something that's really innovative,
that has often come from a collaboration or an unexpected
(16:51):
piece of you know, you go down the thing with fringe,
you can go down a little aally down into a pacement,
there's a little show and you sit down, Oh, your
mind gets blown, how on earth is this show here?
Or you know, go out. People do shows in the
most unexpected venues. So we're always looking for things that
might surprise and delight but also challenge and people that
(17:15):
are telling in deeply personal and connected stories and help
us see the world in a different way. And that's
an amazing thing that can happen just sitting in going
to a show and you literally will see the world
in a different way. It opens your mind, gets you
thinking differently. So looking for all of those things and
(17:37):
I'm always very excited about the intersection of art and technology.
So I love it when there's something that's a when
an artist is working with a technologist that makes something
immersive or something that makes you have an experience that
you really haven't had before. So I created the interactive
(18:00):
when I arrived as the director of Fringe, and that's
become an amazing stream in the Fringe and the Also,
we've just started to eat and drink when Genre eaten
so many great collaborations between restaurants and bars and cafes
(18:20):
bringing food and drink into the show. And so yeah,
we're always trying to make sure that everyone feels they
can find a space in the Fringe, and whatever wacky
idea they have, we try and make sure it fits
and make sure they can have the best shot at it.
Speaker 1 (18:38):
It's that you're open to making it fit. Oh, yes,
the openness always So I'm hearing a theme of growth
and innovation. Twenty three saw a record amount of tickets sold.
That was an inspiration moment for the Fringe, for the
entire team working out, but for the state. You know
(18:59):
nationally all eyes, how do you back up? How do
you go? Twenty four? How what's next? You know? Nothing
in going to stop us. We've got to go again.
That's you know, not that I want to put any
pressure on you, but that's like the Okay, what are
we you know, how are we going to hit that?
What do we? Yeah? I mean, what do those conversations
(19:21):
look like?
Speaker 2 (19:21):
I get, well, it really took off, like like with
twenty three. We we originally had internally said we thought
we might sell a million tickets by twenty twenty five
or something like that. But I just got a little
bit caught up in this because last year, at the
beginning of the program launch, we was thinking eight hundred
(19:42):
thousand tickets. It just didn't sound as you know, exciting,
right like, it's not all that.
Speaker 1 (19:47):
I'm sorry, it's still very sick.
Speaker 2 (19:49):
But I thought, I we'll just go for a million.
So I said, we're going to aim for a million,
and everyone's like, Heather, it's a couple of years ahead
of what we were aiming for.
Speaker 1 (19:57):
And by the way, Heather, not that I want to
really introduce into interrupt you, but you do know that
when you say words out to the universe that actually
what happened. That is what happened. So you're a very
smart woman. You should have known this.
Speaker 2 (20:14):
And so then it just became this thing that everyone
was talking about, We're going to have a million tickets
and so then it was like, well, how can we
what's the call to action that we can put out
there to make everyone realize that they can all play
a part in this. And we were saying, well, actually,
if everyone just who normally goes to fringe and just
brings an extra friend who hasn't been before, and if
(20:37):
everyone buys one more ticket than they usually do, we
are going to hit this target. And that wasn't until
the last few days and then we realized, oh, we're
so close. Now we're going and we did it on
the Sunday, the final Sunday, and it was I would
walk down the street and people strangers were coming up
to me saying, I'm going to go to the extra show.
I'm going to go because so we really hit a
(21:00):
Everyone sort of really gone on with this concept that
we could all do this together together. And that's the
beauty of the Adelaide Fringe. It is the people's festival.
Everybody did it together. There's no festival that Adelaide comes
alive in in that way that the Fringe just brings
everyone out. And then they were like we can make
this happen. And we were the first event in the
(21:24):
entire history of a Stray to sell a million tickets,
and I think I have no doubt we'll be smashing
it again because right now I just checked before I
came here, we compared to this day last year, we're
twenty five percent up on ticket sales. Now that doesn't mean,
you know, that's we've got a long way to go, obviously,
but generally every year the pattern is set quite early.
(21:48):
We can see the pattern. If we start at ten percent,
fifteen percent up, we generally end there. We might end
say fifteen percent up or something like that. Well that
would mean one point one, you know, one million, one
hundred and fifty thousand. So I'm really confident. I'm confident
Adelaide and South Australians will come out and do it.
(22:10):
I'm really confident that they'll also get all their friends
and family. We're running an incredible ad into State at
the moment, which is all about how you know, the
biggest show on the globe with the massive show you
can In the ad, it's an astronaut that can see
Adelaide fringe from space, so it's really good fun but
(22:31):
those ads that we've been running in the last couple
of years have worked really well to get more interstate
people to come and discover Fringe, and so I think
with a lot of tourists and people being out and
really feeling part of it, I think we will smash
the million tickets again. And the other thing is we've
got a stunning program. It's probably the best program we've
(22:52):
ever had. We've got, you know, as we said, nearly
fifteen hundred shows, almost forty and around about individual performances.
There's all the favorites, aback. I mean, the Garden's got
a great program, Gluttony's got a great program. But there's
loads of other new things as well. We've got an
(23:12):
inflatable church on Light Square.
Speaker 1 (23:16):
Where do you see an inflatable church? Yes, not going
to burn when we stand through, and it's.
Speaker 2 (23:23):
Come and have a fun fake renew your ours and
you know, play have great wedding fun in the Light
Square there. And we've got a fantastic circus in Ellis
Park in the western side. So there's a lot more
all over the city as well. And we've got this
planetarium dome coming to the Freemasons Hall where you can
(23:47):
see all sorts of incredible immersive works underwater, in space
and things. So there's and there's going to be this
amazing light and projection piece in the Botanic Gardens Natural Wonders,
and that's going to be really beautiful under the Stars,
a big outdoor gallery in the gardens under the Stars.
(24:07):
So I feel like we've got a program that's going
to excite everyone, and I think everyone's going to come
out and smash the target. And we just know that
Adelaide comes alive in fringe time like no other time,
and it's not even just for a weekend, for the
entire month.
Speaker 1 (24:27):
I as I said, my first ever fringe experience was
twenty three. I grew up in a small country town
on the Greater Sham Road. I went to a high
school called tim Boone High had amazing teachers Helen Land
and Fiona Lane. And when we were coming through so
about fifteen or sixteen, we did the further Fringe Festival
(24:50):
and they had been here and we had heard about
it as children. So to relive or to finally experience it,
I guess has been this incredible thing. But you know,
as a Victorian kind of coming into the state it
has just been this is the arts capital, this really is.
And I'm probably upsetting every Victorian you know and all this.
(25:14):
You know, very aware of all of that, But I
just think until you have come and experienced this, you
just don't know until you've done it, No, you And
I'm a convert, you know, I will tell everyone now
you know you have to do this and there's something
for the kids and for your parents and for your gut.
And I think that's right.
Speaker 2 (25:34):
I think you have to see it to understand and
believe it. Then of course, having a strong fringe means
there's strong other things. You know, the artists. The fringe
is a launch pad for artists that then go on
and do other shows year round. And the other thing
that happens at fringe is we have hundreds of international
(25:55):
and interstate festival directors and venue curators tell vision program
leads they're all coming to Adelaide Fringe. You never know
who you're sitting next to. You might be sitting next
to someone who's scouting that show to go next up
for Sydney Opera House or a theater in New York,
or a festival in France or an arts center in Singapore,
(26:17):
like the Adelaid, Fringe is a scouting ground for where
people come and find new shows, meet up with new artists,
and so we're yeah, we're a launch pad and you
can be sure that when you see that program go,
you know into State, it's not going to be the
affordable fringe ticket price. So you know, see it first
(26:40):
at the fringe and discover it, discover it together.
Speaker 1 (26:43):
There was some two young lads that had come into
State and they were doing their first show, and we
were in the gardens, I think, just having some food.
That was the other thing. We hadn't decided on what
show to see, so we decided to go and each
and have a little drink and then just kind of
see what was on. You know, we just let it
(27:03):
love at us for the night. And these two young
lads come up and they said itself first first ever friends.
Here's that. They had a little QR code on a
piece of paper and it was up the street, up
the stairs at the little place and they were doing
their marketing, they were doing the producing, they'd written the show,
they were doing the show, they were doing everything. And
I just thought, if you can be a part of
(27:25):
a platform that can give you that experience, there's going
to get nothing stopping you.
Speaker 2 (27:30):
No, that's it. And that's what artists do tell us
as well, they say, you taught me how to do
the producing side. You taught me how to do the
business side. You taught me how to make sure that
I understand marketing so that people actually I get bums
on seats. Because with fringe, of course, the artists, you
know that the shows are earning their box office, they're
not getting paid upfront to be there. So to learn
(27:53):
all of that stuff is invaluable and take that around
the world with you. It's just amazing. All's real, right,
that's it, and you're not you know, it doesn't it's all.
It's becoming a flatter playground. It's not so hierarchical anymore.
You can be your own producer. It doesn't have to
be you know. And so, and that's where you can
(28:14):
learn that sort of thing in the fringe as well.
Speaker 1 (28:17):
Heather, I'm conscious of time. You are a public figure
and much loved here in Adelaide. What does downtime look
for you? Like, seriously, what does it look like when
you know the lights are off for a second and
you get to breathe, because I don't know if you stop,
I don't know if you actually get to pause.
Speaker 2 (28:39):
Yeah, I probably need to pause more, people often tell me.
But I have the thing I love the most is
I just love hot springs, hot tubs. Hot water is
my thing for getting just chilling out. And so when
my partner and I go away anywhere, it's always, without
(29:00):
fail based on are there good hot springs and you know,
whether we go to the go to something, you know,
go and have on send in Japan, or whether we
go to the even you know, just in rural Victoria
there on the coast, go and have some relaxing in
some hot springs there, or even just in a hot
(29:22):
tub at That to me is when I can truly
say I'm not gonna I'm not on the phone, I'm
not worrying about work. I'm just soaking up, soaking in
a hot tub. And we've been all based on most
of our holidays have been based on where can we
just relax in some saunas and some hot tubs and
(29:45):
then often jump in a very cold lake afterwards.
Speaker 1 (29:48):
Which you.
Speaker 2 (29:52):
So that's probably one of our favorite things to do.
But I mean, yeah, I don't feel I don't. I
feel exhausted by it. I get so much of my energy.
I feel like I plug in and get energy from
being part of helping artists, help light up a pathway
(30:14):
for them to make connections they need to make. And
I mean during fringe, I go see a few shows
a night and people say, how do you see so many?
It's I just feel energized by, you know, seeing all
the different shows and try as much as I can
to go to some really diverse venues and go to
We've seen huge growth in the suburbs and the regions.
(30:37):
We've got fringe shows in the far North up at
William Creek, We've got them down the southeast and over
on the air Peninsula and the York Peninsula. So I
try as much as I can to get out there
and see so it's what gives me energy, and I
just the thing I love the most is when I
see artists that have discovered the audience they wanted. I've
(31:00):
found some great people in their audience that might even
be a connection for the future of touring, and that's
just amazing. And Adelaide is playing a massive role in
what appears in other festivals around the world. What appears
in high major venues around the world, and a lot
(31:22):
of it's because they were born here in the Adelaide Fringe.
Speaker 1 (31:26):
Heather, I just the energy that comes off you. I
just how can I help? How can we get involved?
What do we need to do? Number one, I'm thinking
we buy a ticket.
Speaker 2 (31:35):
That's it.
Speaker 1 (31:36):
But what else can we do?
Speaker 2 (31:38):
Well, definitely buy tickets and buy more tickets than you think,
you know, like if you think, oh, well, you know,
maybe you might see three shows in Fringe, go see
five or six. Also, if you want to buy a ticket,
you can you can pay it forward for people that
might not be able to afford to buy a ticket.
That's on our website, so you can buy tickets so
(32:00):
that we then buy tickets for people that can't afford
maybe facing some difficulties, communities that are facing disadvantage. We
do a lot of those ticket buying through the Fringe.
And you can also make a donation, which is a
funding that we use to buy those tickets separately, and
(32:21):
also we give out some grants to artists so that
all keeps the eco sort of system growing and anyone.
The other thing is talk to the artists after the show.
That's an amazing thing about the Fringe. The artists come
and hang out after the show and they love to
talk with you, and you know, spread the word. Put
(32:42):
it on your social media, always spread great news if
you see a great show. Adelaide's in a wow of
a like. The word of mouth is just unbelievable at Fringe,
and you see it in the ticket sales. When something's good,
you can you know it just goes. We also built
make sure you in deep dive into all the filters
(33:05):
and all the things on our website because we've spent
many years trying to make sure that the customer journey
on the ticket buying is great and simple and we
can help you find the show you're looking for rather
than being overwhelmed. And we've added things like near me now,
which would be great for someone to me suited for
your last minute book. And then also if you want
(33:27):
to know what's on on a certain night at a
certain time in a certain genre, we've built all of
that and we've also created a new thing on our
website the last couple of years. We've got the Myfringe Planner,
which if you go in and new just favorite shows
and then you go into my Fringe Planner. It will
help you create a schedule of how you can see
(33:50):
all those shows. So get in there and use all
the things on our website because we've built them for
you to try and help you have a better fringe.
Speaker 1 (33:59):
Well, Heather, thanks, thank you so much for joining us
on the podcast. We've loved having you. Thank you,
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