We started our work looking at events and festivals tourism in Hobart with Darklab – the creative agency arm of MONA. Hobart’s events and festival program is widely regarded as one of the most fascinating and successful in the world, but as the city has grown in popularity, the spaces and infrastructure required to host large-scale activity have decreased. By comparing the physical attributes of the city to the needs of its event and festival operators we were able to identify gaps and opportunities to enhance, expand or create new space that will allow Hobart to deliver its wildly popular program.

From Hobart and the South, we moved our focus to Northern Tasmania where events are more subtle but equally important and rich in character. The unfair advantage of the North is the generosity and character of its people – especially around events which are as much a celebration for the local community as they are a curiosity for the visiting audience. Not surprisingly then, many of our strategic recommendations for the North leverage its people skills, clarifying who is responsible for what, and focusing local enthusiasm on a reduced but powerful set of project priorities to grow the events tourism market.  

Our work for Visit North Tasmania in turn introduced the City of Launceston to our way of thinking and we have since been engaged to help them develop an Events Framework for the city. Working back from their Action Plan which sets out a vision for people, place and prosperity, we are in the process of setting out a clear logic, focus and measurement for their investments in the city’s events.