Sunday, 16 October 2005
The Geekend & The Festival
Busy = Good (for the most part)
There were a few geeks in town, courtesy of Jon and his mates. They were amusing to spend time with. Seemed a nice bunch. I don't know many names, but I have a few interesting photos...
My neighbour dropped a lit cigarette on me as I walked under his window. Now I know why they have their windows open when it's absolutely freezing outside.
SightSonic was ok, but should have been sooo much better. It's main problem is lack of publicity. Apparently, despite the Council being involved in the organisation of the festival, and despite the Council's own City of Festivals campaign, they don't allow SightSonic to display banners or posters in the streets.
This makes it difficult to get the public's attention. There are things going on, but they don't realise, or there's no information about the strange projection in the window of a closed shop, so they walk past, completely unaware there's a festival on.
On top of that, I'm not a fan of the website. Previous years had amazing websites, but the last two or three have been sub-standard, in my opinion. A good, accessible, informative website would improve things a lot! *sigh*
And there were hardly any events today. Try flyering when there's not a lot going on to tell people about. There should have been more going on today, like more artist talks and such. People wanted to know what was going on right then, right there. They weren't interested in the other side of town, or later in the evening. If there had been something on then, maybe they'd have gone to it, and then decided to come back (or visit another venue) later for something else, as well.
There also needs to be more street installations, especially during the day. In the past such things as the colourful illumination of Clifford's Tower have really captured people's attention. :)
Hopefully they'll learn from this year and put on a terrific show next year. Although none of the feedback from last year seems to have made a difference, so my outlook isn't very optimistic. But I had fun volunteering, nevertheless. Plus, the fountain is very cool, and it's still there (until the end of the month), so that rocks. :)
The rest of today has been good, for reasons that will be revealed later...
Toad-In-The-Hole tonight - YAY!!!!!!!!
