Deadline
for submissions for Main Festival: August 15, 2018.
New projects and initiatives and the
“consistency of delivering great art to our audiences” combined to give this year’s
National Arts Festival in Grahamstown a fresh vibe and energy, and drove a
“modest but important” increase in attendance, according to Festival CEO, Tony
Lankester.
We’re happy that we managed to show some
growth in what continues to be a tough economic climate, and even happier that
the work of our artists found favour with both audiences and critics,” he said
as the Festival reported overall attendance (a combination of tickets issued
and audiences at free events) of 209,677, a 4.5% increase over last year’s
figures.
Two key initiatives are credited with
providing some fresh energy to the iconic 44 year-old event – the launch of the
Creativate Digital Arts Festival and the move of the Standard Bank Village
Green craft market to a new home. But it was also the carefully curated
programme, together with the wide choice offered to audiences across both the
Main and Fringe platforms that drove audiences into the City’s theatres.
Ashraf Johaardien, the Executive Producer
responsible for the artistic programme of the Festival, commented that
"box office figures are by no means a comprehensive measure when it comes
to the role, purpose – or indeed story of the National Arts Festival – but they
are nevertheless an important key indicator of performance in a given year.”
“The biggest selling productions on the
overall Main programme were, once again, the flagship music shows, including
Amanda Black, Suzanne Vega, and Samthing Soweto. We also saw strong support for
Festival staples: the Gala Concert which was performed by the Eastern Cape
Philharmonic Orchestra this year and the return to the Festival of Cape Town
City Ballet after a four year absence with Robin van Wyk’s classical reworking
of Romeo And Juliet,” Johaardien
reported.
Other than the ballet, the biggest selling
dance production on the Main was the Cape Dance Company’s Interplay while Standard Bank Young Artist Award winner for
Theatre, Jemma Kahn’s The Borrow Pit led
the box office in her genre. Stephen Cohen’s put your heart under your feet, and UJ Arts & Culture’s African Gothic by Reza de Wet (directed
by Alby Michaels) also emerged as audience favourites in the results of a
post-festival audience survey, as did Standard Bank Young Artist Award winner
for Jazz, Thandi Ntuli.
The strong selection of international work
on the programme also found favour with audiences – Alphonse (Canada), Choral
Connections (UK), Femi Koya (Nigeria)
and Hamlet (Switzerland) all featured
strongly in box office reports while the international buskers introduced at
the Village Green - from Canada, Sweden, Japan and Australia - were a huge hit.
Turning to the Fringe, Lankester noted the
continuing success and growth of the curated venue model, where independent
producers select and schedule work to stage in a single venue. “Eight of the
top ten grossing productions were presented in curated venues,” he noted, with
Cape-based production company Followspot Productions’ venue being responsible
for five of those, including all of the top three productions and the Festival’s
biggest grossing Fringe show, Caliente.
“Followspot have got the formula right,
consistently delivering productions that hit the right notes with audiences,”
Lankester said.
Also performing strongly were the two other
dominant curated venues – Siv Ngesi’s debut selection of work at the Drill Hall
(with box office success being enjoyed by comedians Loyiso Gola and Rob van
Vuuren, as well as Daniel Richards’ acclaimed performance in The Best Of Pay Back The Curry And State
Fracture and the Festival’s original curated venue, The Edge, staging,
among other smashes, festival favourite, the Standard Bank Ovation
Award-winning magician Stuart Lightbody.
Outside of the curated venues, theatre on
the Fringe is still strong with the much talked-about Woolworths written and directed by Juliet Jenkin, Neil Anthony
Docking’s Revlon Girl (directed by
Steven Feinstein), Contagious Theatre’s The
Old Man And The Sea and Richard Kaplan's Selwyn And Gabriel (directed by Tara Notcutt) all featuring in the
list of top grossing shows.
“We were interested to note that, on the
Fringe, we didn’t see dance emerge as strongly as it had done in previous
years,” Lankester said. “This could possibly be attributed to there being a
particularly strong dance selection on the Main curated programme this year.”
While the Festival registered a growth in
attendance, Lankester noted that, increasingly, audiences are seeking out safe
bets, good value experiences and free or low-cost entertainment.
“In the context of shrinking levels of
disposable income, audiences are taking fewer risks and being more careful in
the choices they make, which is understandable. But if this is a long-term
trend it might ultimately affect the sector’s appetite for creating new, edgy
work which isn’t necessarily good for the arts,” he said. “79% of respondents
to our post-Festival survey said that seeing new work and discovering new
voices and talents was either important or very important to them,” Lankester
noted. “But there is a gap between that response and what we’re seeing in terms
of actual ticket sales, where audiences are gravitating to companies and venues
that are known and familiar, with a strong track record.”
Another trend being driven by the broader
economy is the tendency for visitors to stay for shorter periods. “We don’t
have specific data on the length of stay this year, but our best guess is that
the average number of nights spent in Grahamstown is down from where it was in
2016 where the average visit was six nights. We’ll know for sure when we
conduct our follow-up in-depth study next year.”
But that aside, it is still the compelling
mix of productions and the overall experience that audiences seem to find
appealing. “Our post-Festival survey showed that the totality of the Festival
experience is important to visitors, with the general vibe, the Village Green,
exhibitions and Creativate all emerging strongly. But with 90.1% of respondents
citing “The Shows” as being a highlight of the Festival, it’s clear that live
performance is alive and well in South Africa,” Lankester said.
“82% of respondents said they would return
in future years. Our audience loyalty and retention rates are extremely high –
and we’re delighted with the response we saw to our new initiatives and the
work of our artists,” he concluded.
The Call for Proposals for 2019 National
Arts Festival Main programme is now open. For further details visit https://www.nationalartsfestival.co.za/2019-festival/naf19-call-for-proposals/
Deadline for submissions is August 15, 2018.
Keep up with the Festival by following:
Website: www.nationalartsfestival.co.za
Facebook: www.facebook.com/nationalartsfestival
Twitter: @artsfestival
Instagram: nationalartsfestival
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