Life after the Festival (group email)

The New Zealand International Arts Festival 2008 has come to an end and with it I can leave behind a whole heap of madness, incompetence, stress and overwork. But from it I'm also taking a lot of lessons learnt, some great new friends and a big hotch-potch of memories.

It's quite a different beast from the Edinburgh Festival. The NZ Festival is more like a large version of Assembly Theatre in the Edinburgh Fringe, programme and atmosphere-wise. It certainly doesn't transform the city in the same way as you find a different Edinburgh in August. There's a Fringe festival too, much more like I imagine the Edinburgh Fringe used to be. The role of the Festival here is different too: it provides kiwis with one of the few opportunities they have to see what's being produced at the top level around the world. As a result, it also provides a rare chance for NZ performing groups to set themselves against an international benchmark while staying at home. It's a wonderful thing.

I was Deputy Venue Manager for the festival's 'flagship venue', the Pacific Blue Festival Club. I ended up doing most of the Venue Manager's job too, but I won't go into that. What happened, happened. Main thing is that I finally got to try my hand at the next big step up from Front of House Manager, and I don't think I did too badly. We had some really great stuff in the programme (as well as some mediocre, of course) and it was pretty damn exciting to work in such a varied and high profile venue.

The Festival Club is a temporary structure - a cabaret tent (Pacific Crystal Palace), which is a modern NZ-made version of the Spiegeltent, for those in the know; attached to the Crystal Palace structure was a huge marquee fitted out as a bar. Most of the VIP functions are hosted there, so lots of big names and important faces around too.

I didn't get to see a huge amount of Wellington, or really experience Wellington life (apart from battling with the Wellington elements in our great big tent - we became squeedgie queens and fought many a battle of the (tent roof) bulge). I did manage to make it to a few shows though, incl. Black Watch (again) and the amazing Traces.

There were some old faces around too, most of them from my Assembly days. Plus a couple of lads who cropped up from my stint on the door at the QMU. Very random. Another old face that, inevitably, joined the melee was Sean's. We briefly caught up but for the moment the decision is not to stay in touch.

By far the best bit of it all was the discovery of the wonderful Emma. Em was the venue's Production Manager and, with a whole variety of shit flying about, we together found the eye of the storm and pulled together to spend most of our time there. It's so very rare to find someone you work and get on so well with, and it was an absolute treasure every day.

And now I'm back at base camp in South Auckland. My wee sister arrived a few days ago and we've been enjoying the end of summer. We visited Auckland's Royal Easter Show yesterday and had an absolute blast. Tomorrow morning we head north to discover Northland. Cue lots of beaches, islands, snorkelling and kauri trees. Can't wait!