MICF losing money and having scheduling woes.

[Mythor]

I think there might be a bit more kerfuffle/fall out over the festival losing money this year. Be interesting to see if they bump the schedule again or have fewer acts or what next year.

[Thread has been split.]
This thread consists of parts of two threads discussing the fallout from MICF 2006 having lost money this year, despite having many more acts than MICF 2005.
I think people want to talk about this and it's easier if it's in one thread dedicated to it, instead of mutilating my Forum Open post or Lily's more general fallout thread.

[rozymisty]

Why/how they loosing money????

[Gutter Monkey]

Originally Posted by rozymisty

Why/how they loosing money????

Read the article by Corrie Perkin and the last 2 articles by Dan Ziffer here

[rozymisty]

How could they have lost money, cause i know that lano and woodley tickets sold like hotcakes, just like the final ever shows sold (sold out aparently in one day-thank god i got to tickek at 9am).

[susanjacobs]

Originally Posted by rozymisty

How could they have lost money, cause i know that lano and woodley tickets sold like hotcakes, just like the final ever shows sold (sold out aparently in one day-thank god i got to tickek at 9am).

I went on to 3 shows on a Saturday night. Every show was full. However, it was noted that during the week it wasn't so full. So maybe only the weekend shows sold well?

[susanjacobs]

Why, oh why? Why isn't the Festival more important to planning of events? First the Commonwealth Games buggered everything up, but they only happen once in while (is it every four years? Forgive me, I am American and don't like sport). Then next year, it is on at the same time that the Swimming Championships.

It seems to me that since the Festival is an annual event, they would avoid having big sporting things at the same time. I don't get it.

[Mythor]

They lost money because they spent a buttload on advertising to counteract the post-Games haze. That's the general gist of what I've read.

[Mythor]

Comm. Games are every 4 years, yes.
I don't know about the revenues generated versus the Swimming Championships, but I'd imagine the Comm. Games would bring a lot more people to Victoria than MICF?

And I think it might have something to do with them not really being "competing" events. You wouldn't stage the Olympics and the Commonwealth Games in the same city during the same timeframe, but an Arts festival and a Sports Carnival?

[unfrufru]

and concentrated on larger names, and fucked up the hifi and the barry's and generally pissed people off.

[susanjacobs]

I know nothing about sport and the watching and/or enjoying of it. So forgive me. You are probably right that they don't see them as competition. However, I think the Festival deserves more respect than that. I would not attended the Commonwealth Games (unless one of my children were competing), but I go every year to the Festival.

The CG probably did draw in more revenue, but it wasn't that huge of a hit. They couldn't and didn't sell all of the tickets. I can't find if they ran at a loss or not (my husband believes they did), but I did find this:

The Games ran at a cost of $1.1 billion, of which more than $800 million was paid by the Victorian Government, $32 million by Melbourne City Council and the remainder from ticketing and merchandise revenue and the Federal Government.

[Mythor]

Oh, the Games themselves were probably run at a loss, yes, that would not be a big surprise to me. I meant it more in terms of what it brings to the rest of the economy - spectators from interstate and overseas have to book rooms at hotels, eat at restaurants, do duty free shopping, etc.
Because it's run mostly from Government money, they're willing to take a bit of a loss in exchange for businesses doing more business and paying more tax.

I can only assume the Swimming Championships are expected to do fairly well for tourism as well, else I can't see why they'd be scheduled during what is usually MICF time.

Think maybe we need a topic dedicated to this rather than talking in two threads. Oops.

[Mythor]

Okay, threads merged.

One thing I think the organisers need to do next year is look at some different ways to get the word out about MICF and specific shows at MICF that will have either a better effect than what they used this year, or that are cheaper for the same level of effect.
Were it not for MOSH, I would not have known MICF was on. I didn't see any ads on TV, nor in the paper, nor anywhere else online. Is that because I'm in Sydney? Was there greater exposure in Melbourne leading up to MICF? Or did I just manage to miss everything?

[Alisso]

Given that most of the shows haven't actually sent in their attendance and profit figures, all this stuff about a loss has to be based on festival events, or else it's basically a guess. And just from the state of the festival club, I could tell they weren't doing so well. Everyone I spoke to about it (including various staff) agreed that the management of the festival club was a debacle this year. Even on the days when they DID have a good line-up, they couldn't draw a crowd. And as for superband, I saw people leave the queue before going in when they were told there wasn't going to be any comedy before the band.

So far, the most successful formula I've seen for the festival club has been new comics night early in the week, then gradually bigger acts culminating in a massive Saturday night with Superband, followed by a quieter Sunday. And when there's an alternative (like Spinning Wheel) on the Sunday, that's even better, because then there's somewhere else available on the final Sunday.

I know Trades was going off this year (except whenever I got up there we'd already missed all the fun), but the location doesn't do it any favours. The tent's nice and close, and Laugha is only two nights a week, a similar late night show thing there would do well, as was demonstrated by the Anzac Day Eve thing there which had a great crowd, especially given that it was a Monday and it was only really announced on the day.

But I was somewhat disappointed by Laugha this year (ooh, segue!). While I'm not one of them, Chopper does have his fans, but I saw them at Laugha some nights when he was on, and I'm not sure if they were quite the right crowd for musical comedy. They were certainly happy to see Chopper, but then they didn't quite get into the spirit of the rest of the show.

It's tempting to assume that the major change in Laugha was the frequent absence of Tim and Eddie, but even on the nights they were on, the crowds seemed a bit lacking compared to last year...then again, last year was absolutely phenomenal at times, packed solid, and people all around the walls. And last year's line-ups were pretty spectacular too, most of the time. Of course, the weather worked against the tent at times...presumably because the festival was later in the year, we had a lot more rain, and there's not a lot of shelter around the tent.

But the main thing I couldn't get over was the state of the festival club. Comedy Bingo? "Karaoke" which wasn't really karaoke? And without Adam Richard and Meshel Laurie's hilariously bitchy comments? *G* And while Lounging with the Scardies was a good concept on it's own, it can't compare to, and shouldn't replace, the Superband. I wonder if there's anyone else who would be up to the challenge of taking on the actual Superband on Saturdays, leaving the Scardies to do a more laid-back, earlier lounge set on Sunday nights?

Martin Martini did seem very popular, and I was impressed, but it didn't have quite the same impact as superband. There were a few live bands on after the comedy in 2005, Martin Martini could take Friday nights *g*

The other big fuck up at the hifi was the Lock-In. Part of the reason for that being changed from 20 hours to midnight-to-dawn was a lack of acts. If you're going to put together a show that runs for twenty hours, it really helps to have lined up some acts who are prepared to do that very difficult 9am-12am bracket when everyone's buggered, and half the audience won't laugh at anything, and half are laughing at things that aren't actually funny. Advertising a show like that without any big names to back it up was a big risk, and they had to back down, which doesn't look good.

And midnight to dawn in the hifi is not that big a deal for some of us *g* Midnight to dawn with actual comedy is pretty impressive *G* and if that had been the intention from the start, and they'd advertised that properly, it could have been a bit more spectacular. Not that it wasn't fun, it was great to see people bring back some classic stuff (the abridged version of Boiling Point was absolutely fucking brilliant) and I gained a bit of respect for Daniel Kitson after seeing him MC a seven hour show *G*


The interesting thing I've heard is that, while the actual FESTIVAL has lost money this year, the independant acts have mostly done really well. I know I've never seen quite so many sold out signs on the board every night. Half the big names had sold out before the festival had even started, because the tickets went on sale so early, and a lot of people who left booking till later took the attitude of "well, we might as well see SOMETHING", which did wonders for the less well known acts.

The advertising budget probably did make a big dent in the profit margin of the festival, but if they'd managed to get the usual sort of crowds at the hifi, they might have done a bit better. You know there's something wrong when even the participants, who can get into the hifi for free, can't be bothered going.

[JD3000]

I didn't really notice very much advertising in the lead up to MICF. The TV commercial didn't seem to appear until the Gala aired. There were ads at least weekly in The Age, but as they were the major sponsors, you might assume that the cost of this wouldn't have bumped up the costs too much (I'm sure I'm wrong on this assumption).

The street banners went up around the CBD after the Comm Games, but they are put up every year (maybe earlier in years past?).

I didn't really notice any additional forms of advertising that haven't been employed in previous years.

We at the Squirrel were previewing shows in the month leading up to it but to our readership, the impending Festival wasn't unexpected news!

[susanjacobs]

Originally Posted by Alisso

...and a lot of people who left booking till later took the attitude of "well, we might as well see SOMETHING", which did wonders for the less well known acts.

When I decided that I had to go to the Festival, our first choices were sold-out. Every first choice had 2-3 alternative choices; a total of about 20. All but two was sold out. One show we saw we got tickets at the door. Not exactly the Festival night out that I had imagined, but it was a great night out.