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Murrurundi’s Next Big event / Festival Planning Workshop

Come along and help us plan and create – MURRURUNDI’s NEXT BIG EVENT – by attending our FREE special event planning workshops on Saturday March 1st and Sunday March 2nd 2025 at St. Paul’s Anglican Church Hall in Murrurundi – from 10am to 4pm each day.  A light lunch and refreshments will be provided.

We’ve brought in the big guns to help us plan the biggest and most successful event ever !

Alex Wisser is the Creative Director and co-founder of the CEMENTA Contemporary Arts Festival held bi-annually in Kandos. Initially looked upon with misgiving and even some resistance from the local community Alex has, over 10 years and 5 festivals, turned CEMENTA into the gold standard for community arts events, brought millions of tourist and grant dollars into a small regional town and found common ground with the local community who now embrace the event, the weird art and the unusually dressed arty crowd who descend on Kandos every two years.

Alex is not only a talented artist and tireless curator of CEMENTA and several other art institutions in Kandos, he is a great presenter with no end of humorous and cautionary tales from his experiences in staging a regional arts event in a small rural town.

You can get a taste of Alex, Kandos and the Cementa Festival by following this link to a recent episode of ABCTV’s Backroads featuring Kandos.

https://iview.abc.net.au/video/RF2427V004S00

Workshop Aims & Objectives

The aim of our workshops is to bring together members of the arts and crafts community as well as local businesses and the broader community to discuss the idea of running a broadly similar multi day, bi annual arts driven event in Murrurundi starting in October 2025 and running on alternate years to CEMENTA.

Day 1 will be the wider community in attendance. The aim being to guage community expectations and assess the results of the group being invited to imagine our town re-purposed for the event.

Day 2 will be key stakeholders from MACC, external arts workers who have specially come for the workshop. Plus community and business owners who are keen to be involved. The aim of day 2 is for MACC subcommitte and key stakeholders to have been exposed to sufficient discussion, tangible conclusions from the community session and other content to assemble a users guide to staging a workable achievable, sustainable event. The Sunday session will also require some discussion about financials, grant opportunities, sponsorship options and workable strategies for us to be able to attract visiting artists by offering non financial incentives.

This workshop is supported by an arts UPPER HUNTER CASP Grant.