As Festival draws to a close we begin our annual ritual of weighing up an array of factors, perceptions and sales figures to work out whether it was a success or not.
As Festival draws to a close we begin our annual ritual of weighing up an array of factors, perceptions and sales figures to work out whether it was a success or not.
According to the preliminary set of figures released by the Festival offices on Tuesday, the numbers appear to be slightly up on last year’s sales. And in this uncertain economic climate holding steady is pretty good.
As Festival does not keep records of sales figures of the vendors at the Village Green or at Church Square (probably neither does SARS), it is difficult to say how well they have been doing in comparison with previous years.
However, chatting informally to various stall owners at both the above venues could easily convince one that this year’s sales are down on last year, which of course were down on the previous year’s… and so on.
The real success or failure of Festival cannot be usefully quantified in the value of ticket sales or the number of productions, but rather the quality of performances and artistic works should be used to make a meaningful assessment of any year’s Festival.
It is an arts festival that should be measured against a yardstick of artistic merit because the future of the event is completely dependent on the quality of the current year’s shows. If people like what they see, they will come back next year even if the municipality allows air pollution to threaten the lungs of locals and visitors alike.
The vast majority of reviews and reports we have received over the past week or so bode well for Festival 2014. Of course there have been duds and a few shows described as merely OK – but overall we should expect more than enough return visits next year.
Theatre productions have been excellent and some of the script-writing has shown exceptional quality. It is encouraging to find such enormous vigour in our performing arts.
The extraordinary talent of our musicians and composers across a wide range of music genres has also been gratifying. We have not had to rely on foreign talent to raise the quality of the offerings at Festival as there are many top performers in our own backyards.
Festival organisers should pat themselves on the back for doing an excellent job in selecting the various acts and making sure that it all happened smoothly.
Municipal officials will also be pleased with themselves because, at the time of writing, there had not been any serious power outages nor have we heard complaints from visitors about water shortages or the sometimes peculiar colours of our water.
It might be a little early to describe the 2013 edition of the National Arts Festival as a success, but preliminary indicators suggest we have something to be proud of. We can do it: we can put on a good show when the pressure is on.
