BWW Blog: 11 Ways to Make More Amazing! National Arts Festival Days

With the National Arts Festival having come to a close, many people are reflecting on what they took away from their experiences in Grahamstown over the past two weeks. Some - like Mike van Graan - traditionally offer perspectives via their social media accounts, which allows for dissemination and discussion of the ideas put forward. Many more conversations happen in cars on the way back home, a ritual of catharsis that serves those in the room. Although it is clear that the Festival forms a vital part of the arts scene in South Africa, its 40-year history is rather chequered, with reflections like Van Graan's often highlighting aspects of the Festival that are discreditable, whether organisational or related to the ideological foundations of the annual event. My post-Festival consideration this year was always going to focus primarily on the practicalities of experiencing the Festival in the role of an audience member, although there are some deviations from the assumption of that position. I have based my observations on conversations I had with artists, festival-goers, technicians and my own experience of this year's edition of "11 days of amazing", and my list consequently highlights organisational challenges that can all be met through a diligent pursuit of excellence.

Distribute the National Arts Festival Programme More Widely and Efficiently

The printed National Arts Festival programme remains the best way of getting a comprehensive overview of what is on at the Festival. When it was announced that the programme was available in hard copy, both artists and fans of the Festival struggled to find copies at the Standard Bank branches and Exclusive Books outlets listed, with many staff members at both establishments not knowing how to answer customers who were looking for their pre-NAF fix.

Clarify the Categories in the National Arts Festival Programme - to Benefit Artists and Patrons

Despite the advantage of its scope, the printed National Arts Festival programme is incredibly difficult to navigate. One of the biggest problems here is the indexing of shows per discipline. I think it is essential to order the genres alphabetically in both the Main and National Lottery Fringe sections of the book. It might also be worth revisiting the categories themselves so that the programme can group the shows as accurately as possible. The nature of most disciplines is quite clear, especially now that the section once called "Drama" is now called "Theatre" - an excellent improvement. But with only a few of shows in genres like "Illusion" and shows like BON SOIR not fitting well into any existing discipline, perhaps it is time for a "Variety" category that lists all these couple-of-a-kind shows that fall between the cracks of the traditional genres. There could also be more clarity around just what fits into the "Comedy" listings, namely stand-up pieces rather than light-hearted dramatic narratives, which artist should list in the "Theatre" section. The "Cabaret/Music Theatre" listings should also encompass all music-driven dramatic presentations, including musicals, revues, cabarets and the like. A final gripe: shows that begin with "a" and "the" should be indexed correctly; at present, editors of various sections of the programme seem to be following different conventions.

Help Artists to Place Their Work in the Correct Discipline

The National Arts Festival discusses the importance of this point in the guidelines they release to artists that apply for the fringe, but there are still many "Theatre" pieces listed under "Comedy" or "Poetry", "Musical Theatre" pieces listed as "Theatre" and so on and so forth. An accurately indexed programme helps everyone. It helps audiences to know what to expect when they attend a production. It streamlines the process for the Standard Bank Ovation Awards. It helps the media to showcase the work of artists more accurately. To facilitate an improvement on this aspect of the Festival programme, the Festival Office needs to define the disciplines clearly in their application documents. It may seem inane to have to define for artists the theatre genres in which they work, but it is clear that the common language used at the Festival needs definition, so as to narrow the scope for miscommunication and frustration.

Refine the Layout of the Programme

The first half of the National Arts Festival programme is convoluted. It is unclear what presentation is on which platform and negotiating this half of the programme is like ploughing through a maze. The biographies of the Standard Bank Young Artists are bizarrely disconnected from their showcased works. The Featured Theatre's National Lottery Fringe productions appear as though they form part of the Main Programme, when they are not. The Student Festival listings are a complete mess. This shambles is in needs of some rudimentary organisation. Another major disadvantage of programme is that it is too thick with too much irrelevant content. Why not ditch the advertisements in the National Lottery Fringe section of the book, which all cancel each other out rather than highlighting productions? Then, give each production a little more room for its listing - keeping the listings to five per page - so that there is scope for a larger image along with all the dates, times, venue information, ticket prices and language information. While we're at it, why not make the age recommendation and indicators a little more prominent? All this would mean fewer pages and better readability. How can you lose?

To the Programme Editors - Edit!

The fact checking and editing in the National Arts Festival programme need to be more accurate. Some errors were just careless, such as the heading of the index in the 2016 book reads 2015. Some are unforgivable, for example, the omission of a venue from the map. Others simply have to do with the outdated information being supplied, such as the list of the National Arts Festival Artistic Committee for 2016. Greater care is needed to create a consistently excellent resource that is as up to date as it can be upon printing.

To the Media - Understand the Difference between Previews and Reviews

The media treads a fine line when writing editorials leading up to the National Arts Festival, with arts journalists sometimes coming dangerously close to offering a qualitative opinion on productions that nobody has seen. There is a world of difference between saying that a production has promise, based on the production company involved, a good script, or the previous work of the directors and actors, and saying that it is magnificent. How can one possibly know that a piece is a brilliant new play without seeing it? Arts journalists also need to balance previews of the Main Programme with columns on the National Lottery Fringe, especially when productions on the Fringe have a track record of success from earlier runs.

To the Festival - Curate the Venues More Efficiently

Some of the placements of shows in certain venues at the National Arts Festival are mystifying. It is true that the artists may request venues and that an attempt is made to accommodate these requests. Nonetheless, sometimes the Festival Office needs to take the track record of a production company or a returning show into account and offer a firmer opinion on the venue placement of a show. This consideration is particularly relevant when placing festival best-sellers in smaller venues. A production company that has consistently sold out a house of 100 seats should play a venue that seats 120 or 150 audience members, freeing up smaller venues for new companies or smaller, more intimate productions. I sat in far too many houses of a dozen patrons in cavernous venues this year, while observing venue managers at smaller venues find ways to seat an extra 10 or 20 audience members into a sold out show. A more complex topic related to venue programming is how some sites seem only to cater for performances that reflect the presumed interests of one cultural group. Perhaps I am barking at shadows here; perhaps this is not a widespread occurrence. But this practice, on any level, segregates different audiences during the Festival when all venues need to offer intersectional programming.

Posters, Posters Everywhere

Every year, there is at least as much drama about posters at the National Arts Festival as there is in all of the theatre presentations on the Main Programme combined. It is time to work towards a minimal poster Festival. There are too many shows with too many posters for these to work effectively as a marketing strategy. Like the advertisements in the programme, posters are white noise and cancel out each other's effectiveness. I would advocate a four-poster system, one for each of the three major box office venues and one for the production's venue itself. These could be supplemented by the electronic poster boxes that already appear in the box offices. And perhaps the Festival could also work on larger electronic billboards, like those we see on sports fields, to be erected in a couple of high traffic areas. For those who feel that the Festival atmosphere will be dulled without posters - well, there are more effective ways of creating atmosphere: buskers, street performances and so on. The Cape Town Fringe is formalising a Buskers Festival this year, so maybe we shall see something along those lines at future National Arts Festivals.

Get the App Working Properly

The National Arts Festival App needs to work, and it needs to be updated daily. The links to the Twitter feed and the Festival News feed were fully functional, but I spoke to many people, both artists and audiences, who had glitches in the bookings process. I heard many reports of patrons being able to add shows to their basket, but then not being able to check out and pay. Sometimes the information about a show's availability of tickets was incorrect. It is a huge problem when the app tells a potential audience member that a show is sold out when it is not. Furthermore, the Ovation Awards section of the app was not updated daily. And, while this one is not the end of the world, the bus tracker on my app only started working properly halfway through the Festival, which meant that I spent a great deal of time running after Hoppers that I just missed. The app is a point of access to the Festival experience that still needs lots of work.

Sort out The Cue Once and For All

The Cue is ubiquitous at the National Arts Festival, which makes the print newspaper project from the Rhodes University School of Journalism and Media Studies a valuable resource - but somehow it always feels like a one-sided journalism showcase. The Main Programme receives good coverage, as is its due, but the National Lottery Fringe coverage is - at best - haphazard. While it might be impossible to review every production on the National Lottery Fringe, it does seem that The Cue could cover more than they do. That means that the most coverage that many shows get in this paper is the "Fringe in a Flash" review. As an audience member looking at these shows, these short reviews too often offer a mere summary of the piece. A review needs to provide more than a summary of a press release or the information that already appears in the programme. Perhaps I am misremembering, but even the useful list of sold out shows for the day no longer appeared in the "Stop Press" section next to the daily listings this year, while the Ovation Award citations alongside the "Fringe in a Flash" review were also missing. Lastly, the media - in general, not just The Cue staff, and not only at the platform that is the National Arts Festival - needs to handle complementary tickets more ethically. If you have no chance of placing a column or segment in your paper, blog, radio show or television programme or simply have no intention of covering the show at all then you are simply taking up a seat that could have been sold.

Distribute the Ovation Awards More Equally During the Festival

There were 31 Standard Bank Ovation Awards presented this year. Sixteen of these - slightly more than half - were announced on the last two days of the National Arts Festival. No doubt this will be attributed to the logistics of getting enough members of the 17-strong panel into the 232 eligible productions for a decision to be made. But there has to be a better way of managing those logistics. This year's bottom-heavy distribution of the awards prevented more than half the artists that earned these accolades from making use of the award in their marketing strategies, placing early winners at a clear advantage. There are many tricky issues built into the presentation of the Ovation Awards, many related to any programme of awards that is adjudicated by a small panel, but this one seems to be the most easily addressed. All it would take is better organisation and more efficient management of the process.

So there you have it: some of my reflections on the 2016 National Arts Festival. Next year's festival runs from 29 June - 9 July, with a particular focus on the relationship between Art and Disruption. Proposals for the Main Programme are due by 12 August, with National Lottery Fringe applications opening in November and closing on 14 January next year. With 350 days and counting until another "11 days of amazing", let us hope that everyone works towards making the 2017 National Arts Festival better than all of those that have preceded it.

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