Today the Adelaide Festival and Adelaide Fringe wrap up for another year, the city returns to normal, and our social calendars get a lot less frenetic.
Like many arts festivals around the world, both the Festival and Fringe depend heavily on volunteers to help things go smoothly. And volunteering is a great way to feel part of the festival vibe. This was my 4th year as a Festival volunteer, and this year I decided to be a volunteer for the Fringe as well.
I’ve just added up the hours from the past few weeks and found that I have volunteered over 50 hours in total. Things I have done over this time include:
- Live tweeting selected discussion sessions during Adelaide Writers’ Week
- Operating and minding projectors as part of a multi-site outdoor video art installation
- Keeping queues orderly and ensuring people were in the right queue for the show they wanted to see
- Giving directions and handing out lots of maps, flyers and programmes
Festival volunteering is something I more or less fell into: back in 2012, the Festival decided to bring in a dedicated team of social media-savvy volunteers to live tweet selected sessions during Writers’ Week. I was one of the people who was tapped on the shoulder to help out in that first year, and I’ve been involved in every Writers’ Week since, adding additional volunteer duties as my other commitments allow.
I find volunteering in public-facing roles useful for reminding me some important lessons that I can apply to my own work, such as:
- Signage and maps need to be carefully designed and worded to avoid ambiguity and confusion: what’s clear when you can take your time to find out what’s going on is much less so when you’re arriving at the last minute for a show that’s about to start.
- People don’t tend to read instructions or the fine print when it comes to booking, purchasing and collecting tickets.
- Planning can only take you so far: event staff need to be flexibile and ready to respond to unexpected scenarios. There are only so many things you can be specifically trained to handle, although the training you get as a volunteer for a large event gives some good pointers.
- Being in customer-facing roles can be exhausting! Plus it can be easy to get jaded saying the same thing over and over again to a seemingly endless procession of patrons. Rotating staff across different duties over the course of a shift keeps everyone fresh and able to put their best foot forward.
Right, now I think I’ve earned a few quiet nights in . . . .