EXECUTIVE SUMMARY
The Country Music Festival is one of the importance cultural events in Australia. It usually takes place in Tamworth City, through the partnership of Tamworth Regional Council, Toyota, Tesla, Radio 2TM and other companies. However, this report presents an overview of what occurs during the event and the stakeholders of the events as well. It provides clear description of the event including participants, stakeholders and performances which took place. It is noted that most performances were concerts from different groups, artists’ performance form different types of music such as alternative country rocks, blues, and country music. The report also provides a brief history of Tamworth County Music festival, which includes when it started and why, and the main goals and objectives. The further includes the success factors, impact and the marketing strategies used by the organizer to market the event which made it to be one of the most successful events in the history of Tamworth Country Music Festival event. The report final provide recommendations on how transportation and accommodations challenges can be sorted. It illustrates that transportation problem can be addressed by organizing alternative transport system during event and hiring a firm to install temporary accommodation for the visitors to solve accommodation problem.
INTRODUCTION
The Tamworth County Music festival is an annual music festival which is held in January of year. It brought together different artists in country to celebrate Australia’s music culture and heritage. The event occurred in Tamworth City and the performance of artists takes place at different occasions and rooms throughout the city. Besides music performance, the event includes street dance, folk song performance, traditional dancing competition and street concert performance. It brings together over sixty thousand people from different towns and cities within and outside Australia. It is therefore, one of the most significant cultural events in Australia. The limitation of the event is the timing since it usually takes place in January when students are going back to school; people have spent money during Christmas Holiday and therefore, can raise enough finances to spend on the event. If possible the event should be rescheduled to February for it to improve the number of participants.
DESCRIPTION
The country Music Festival took place in Tamworth City, in New England. The event is annual music festival meant to celebrate Australian’s country music culture, and heritage. It brings together best performing artists in music activities which include traditional folk songs, soloists, choirs, concerts and live performance at various venues. Mostly, classic music, country rock, blues, world music and alternative country music are performed at the event. However, the event is usually stage to celebrate Australian’s country music history, culture and heritage. The event was organized by Ministry of Heritage in partnership with Tamworth Regional Council. It started at NSW Police discretion on Saturday January 18, 2018 (Benneworth, 2017).
The performances at the event are renowned musicians like Keith Urban, Lawrie and Shelley Minson, Brett Clarke, Jodie Crosby Music and Aleyce Simmonds. There are other artists who were line up to performance at the event such as Adam Harvey, Catherine Britt, Troy Cassar-Daley, Lee Kernaghan, Tommy Emmanuel and Bill Chambers. The music performance ranged from rocks, blues, and alternative country music. In addition, there were other performances in traditional folk songs, and choir music.
According to Gibson (2009), stakeholders are individuals or corporations that associate with an event or a project. Therefore, the stakeholders of Country Music Festival are Toyato Australia, Tesla, and Heritage Ministry, Tamworth Regional Council, Coca Cola, regional Australia Bank, Radio 2TM, BALL Marketing, Destination Tamworth and Sanity. It is noted that every stakeholder had a specific role to play to make sure that the event was successful (Gibson, 2009). First, Tamworth Regional Council was the main organizer in charge of coordination and other arrangement which made the event successful. The rest were in charge of financial mobilization to make sure that the financial need is met.
HISTORY
Tamworth Country Music Festival is annual event which started in 1968 and it has been held every year since then to celebrate the Australia Country Music culture and heritage. It was started as a talent quest program known as CCM National Talent Quest, which later became the Festival in January 1973. The performances were mainly radio music activities and later expanded to music award and performance by various artists. Later, it started to attract partners like Coca Cola, Toyota and also led to the formation of Tamworth Songwriters Association Award. Since it was started the event has been held and celebrated by different people and corporations as well. It is noted that previous cases the event had been solely sponsored by Coca Cola (Coca Cola Concerts Award) and Toyota which is known as Toyota Talent Quest. The Country Music Festival has a special day, which is a holiday for it and that shows how the event is importance to Australia community and especially to the city of Tamworth (Hopkins, 2017).
OBJECTIVES AND AIMS
The objective and aims of the Tamworth Country Music Festival is to seek the music talent and celebrate the musical culture and heritage of the people of Australia. It is also supposed to promote music activities in Australia, so that residents can take music as a career for ventures not only for attainment.
SUCCESS FACTORS
The event was 90% successful since it ended as expected without any major casualty. It ended with issuing of Awards on various personalities and groups. The Toyota Award went to the best concert performance; Tesla Award was given to the live performance personality, Kasey Chambers and Lee Kernighan. Most importantly, there were other Awards such as Kids Talent Quest which went to the best kids’ performer on soloist and folk song, No Holds Barred Fiddle Contest which went to the best Alternative Country Music Performance. The event was completed with award of encouragement from the Toyota County Director, Matthew Callachor who noted that “Country Music Festival does not only celebrates culture and heritage, it brings the promote the growth of music in Australia and therefore, it needs corporate support” (Tamworth Council , 2017)
MARKETING
The Country Music Festival was marketed through various platforms so that it could attract many people which were achieved. First, the stakeholders used one of the partners Radio 2TM to advertise the event through its shows and programs. This came out to be very helpful since it could attract several young people to the event. The organizing committee also contracted a Daily Mail, Australia Guide and the Guardian to publish print advertisement on their Newspaper. The intention was to reach several people from different parts of the country. The use of social media was also not left behind since the event had a facebook, twitter and Instagram page well maintained and running concurrently (Diggers & Kable, 2016). The social media pages were activated or formed two months to the event and therefore, it one of the platforms which were used to market the event. From the analysis it is evident, Radio 2TM was the key marketing platform for the event which made it possible to be successful.
IMPACT
The Tamworth Country Music Festival is an important activity for the community and it brought different people from various parts of the country to Tamworth City. This brought a lot of activities in the community and therefore, the county music festival activates the economic activity of the community. This is because during the event hotels, restaurants and even the tour guides are busy and fully booked. It is also important to note that the during the event there are several jobs available for the local community and therefore, the Tamworth country music festival treats several jobs for the community during the event.
The event has little impact on the environment since the carbon emission is very low. It is also noted that the low carbon emission is important since it help the community to remain clean which makes it attractive to many visitors and sponsors. In addition, job positions were created through promotion of the activities and organizing the event. The Tamworth County Music festival is therefore, an important occasion for the community of Tamworth.
CONCLUSION
The Country Music Festival is an important event in the history of Australia which brought people from different walks of life to celebrate music council and therefore, it plays an important role in promoting music and building a community. The festival improves the economy of the community since several companies’ injected funds to build different projects in preparation for the events. The Toyota Company injected $51.4 million into the event which went to security and tends and performance. In short, the event improves the economy of the local community, create unity and create employment as well. It also promotes the local music through giving artists an opportunity to showcase their talents to the world.
RECOMMENDATIONS
Transportation and accommodation has been identified as some of the main challenges faced by Tamworth Regional Council faces. Several usually get stranded and find it difficult to travel to the event and therefore, it is recommended that the organizers should arrange for transportation services from different nearest Cities or town to the Tamworth City. It is also recommended for the organizers to arranged prior accommodation means since; most people could not get accommodation which was very frustrating. It would be proper for the Tamworth Regional Council to partner with a company which can install temporary accommodation during the event. This will increase the number of people who attend the Country Music festival event.
References
Benneworth, P. (2017). Book Review: Music Festivals and Regional Development in Australia.
eprints.lse.ac.uk/52810/1/blogs%20lse%20ac%20uk-Book_Review_Music_Festivals_and_Regional_Development_in_Australia.pdf , 2-35.
Diggers, W., & Kable, A. (2016). Toyota Hats Off Country Music festival 2016.
file:///C:/Users/Masterpiece/Downloads/Hats%20Off%20to%20Country%20Festival%20Program%202016.pdf , 2-30.
Gibson, C. R. (2009). Reinventing rural places: The extent and impact of festivals in rural and
regional Australia. http://ro.uow.edu.au/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=3357&context=sspapers , 2-34.
Hopkins, C. (2017). Tamworth Country Music Festival.
file:///C:/Users/Masterpiece/Downloads/Tamworth_Country_Music_Festival_Blueprint_Recommendations.pdf , 2-34.
Tamworth Council . (2017). Toyota Country Music festival Tamworth 2017.
http://www.tcmf.com.au/files/uploaded/file/TCMF%202017%20Backgrounder.pdf , 2-34.
