Melbourne International Comedy Festival Essay.

Background information of the event

Discuss about the Event Management Melbourne International Comedy Festival.

The chosen comedy festival is a historical event not only in the history of Melbourne but also in the entire world. The event is celebrated every year in Melbourne with enormous joys from irrespective of the age groups. The annual comedy festival accommodates different types of exemplary such as stand-up comedy, street performance, television, cabaret, radio, television and visual arts. The comedy festival aims to discover the hidden qualities, to develop the unexamined potentialities and to get the inspirations of the audiences, which is perhaps the biggest pleasure for an artist and for an event. The festival stays there in the city for around three and half weeks (Melbourne International Comedy Festival, 2017).   

Following are the 5W’s of the chosen comedy festival (Quinn, 2013):

The festival had three important beneficiaries such as audience, corporate and the sponsors. The audiences had enormous enjoyment as they had a highly incremented enjoyment for around three and a half week. They had the chance to have some moments go get relaxed from their everyday hectic schedules. All in all comedy shows are a very good resource of having fun and enjoyment. In the Melbourne, they get this opportunity every year. They wait for this moment, as there are many things in such events than just comedy shows. It has cabaret and street performances also. The sponsors have for them some moment of high revenues and huge publicity. Nothing can be better than promoting such a grand event. Last but not the least, the corporate world such as the event management industry would be highly benefitted of this kind of event, as these events are highly popular and largely profitable. Apart from all such benefits to the different stakeholders associated to the event, these kinds of events are highly beneficial for understanding the cultural values of the geographical area in concerned. The event is highly beneficial from the country’s economy perspectives. The success of such events is a sure boost in the economy of the country. These events are also the source of some employment and it is rightly serving a good amount of employment solutions to the needful unemployed individual. However, the frequency of events would decide the profitability and the associated income of the employed individuals. These kinds of events are the needs of societies, the countries and their economies.

Events are organized primarily for the business purposes. These are in actuality the source of income to a wide numbers of unemployed people such as the artists, the common people and the industry as well. The events are organized every year not just to provide some fun options to the audiences but also to earn a healthy income to provide a good financial supports to the artists, to the event stakeholders and some benefits to the economy of the country. The target audience of such shows are the all age groups bit in particular the old age group and the children. Nevertheless, the success of the success of the events is solely dependent on the people turned around numbers. The nature of such events is to make everyone enjoy being here at the festival venue. It also targets those audiences who are coming to this city as a tourist. This is one of the best attractions, which a tourist could ever have in Melbourne. The nature of the event is more of fun, which is fulfilled by different comedy shows, cabaret dancing, road shows etc.

5W's

There are ample reasons to visit Melbourne such as this is world’s third largest comedy show. The madness of the show can well be seen on the roads as numerous festival lovers are found expressing their happiness. The festival would provide an enlighten array of choices to the audiences. It has as many as 550 shows and the ticket prices are on an average equals to $30. They need to be at the Fed Square. The months of March and April are for the fun lovers at the International Comedy Festival.

The international comedy festival has tried every possible level to enhance the attraction of the comedy festival and attract a mass involvement of local and international public. They had opened up ample of shows booking options, which had offered booking from the online website, by phone and by visit personally to the various booking counters. They had tried to introduce every possible bit to raise the attraction level of the visitors. They had allowed a reasonable parking offers such as during the weekend this would cost $6 for a entire evening. They also had some special arrangements for the mobility persons. They just tried their every possible bit to attain the pleasure of a maximum attendance from every group of the society.

The festival is a landmark in the history of Melbourne as well as in the whole world. The comedy festival is the world’s third largest in terms of popularity and the grandness, which it has. The biggest USP of the comedy festival are Raw Comedy, an Australia’s biggest competition on the open microphone, Class Clowns, a competition for the high school students at the national level and Deadly Funny, a comedy competition for the indigenous people celebrating their unique humour.

John Pinder had first felt the importance of the international comedy festival. He then requested the Victorian Tourism Commission for working something for the proposed field. He then decided to go to some international destination, which were already hosting the same kinds of comedy festivals.  Mr. John then got filled up with the essence of comedy festivals and proposed the plan to the local government of Australia. The local government of Australia then realized that the concept has its own potential. Riding on the highly ignites spirit, the first of its kind was hosted by Barry Humphries and Peter Cook in the year 1987 at the Melbourne Town Hall. The first show had featured 56 different shows. By the year 1999, the number of shows had then evolved to a new height and reached to 120 shows. The festival was at its peak when it reached to a record 369 shows in the year 2010. In the mentioned year, it generated overall revenue such as A$10.9 million making this a largest cultural event in Australia (Melbourne International Comedy Festival, 2017).

To obtain the volunteer jobs in the international comedy festival of Melbourne, the interested candidates can approach to the Imperial, Provincial and Duke at the Wellington Hotels for applying for the volunteer jobs. If someone were interested for the volunteer jobs, the one would get double passes for every single show at the three different venues. The volunteers were only needed to be there for some hours during the comedy festival. It really worked for them who have some experience and a good reference behind them.

History of the event

Following are the three vital work responsibilities that an event manager is required to perform at the different kinds of events (Conway, 2014):

• The event manager has the responsibilities to work closely with the event coordinator to ensure a smooth progress of the event
• They need to be active at all the times and are required to perform dome paper works at some times such as the details planning and the required changes to the schedule
• If the team members have any problem then they are required to approach the event manager, the event manager then would take care of the scenario and would also guide them on how to effectively conduct the job during the events

The overall event was full of entertainment. The audiences who are thronging from the local country and from some other parts of world were telling the story of success, which the international comedy festival has garnered in the last two decades. The high number of thronging people to this event and highly acknowledged performances by some young and talented artists were constructing a different world where expressiveness has no limit. The expressiveness was at its full heights. The emotions had no boundaries there as it went spread for every single moment, which happened there (Yeoman et al., 2014).

The international comedy festival at Melbourne displayed a list of various kinds of events such as road show, cabaret and the comedy shows. I had the opportunity to work as a volunteer in the Trades Hall Comedy. The hall did feature 20 awesome comedy shows comprising of international artists. Potential young artists conducted the shows. I was the volunteer during the shows and I had very a few moments of interaction with the audience. The event was centred on some high performing comedy shows; however, it has many more to offer. I had utilized the chances by catching some special moments during the shows. The comedy shows had the potential to mesmerize with its sheer acts from different young artists. The show had helped me improve my interpersonal communication. The event was full of comedy shows, cabaret and indigenous people expressing their humour. The artists have displayed their different genre of expertise but I realized that it was more than this. It made me realize that talents never die. The imaginative world of artists has submerged me in the illusion of imagination. It made me feel that the show must go on.

The current international comedy festival in Melbourne is widely successful and there are reasons to celebrate. To some of the artists, the comedy festival in Melbourne is much convenient than the Edinburgh. This is because that there is high competition in Edinburgh. Despite of all the glory, which the international comedy festival in Melbourne has fetched on to his credit, it is missing on one important factor such as assimilation with the cultural diversity. The Australian people are changing now. They are becoming less effective in racial activities than in the past. However, the Australian audiences are not yet ready to listen to an assertive speech by some minority group. The behaviour with the indigenous people have nit yet improved.

The recommendation would be for the Australian audiences that they start accepting the minority groups as well such as the Indigenous people (Luckhurst & Rae, 2016). If this happens, this would certainly end the hesitation in the Indigenous people and help them become expressive. This is because that nothing can be a better platform than the drama stage to express the feelings. The change perception of the audiences would open up doors to many minority cultural participations in the comedy festival. Moreover, this would enhance its revenues and would certainly boost the local economy of the country.

Conclusion:

The International Comedy Festival in Melbourne has all the necessary elements in it for attracting a mass participation of audiences from every part of world. However, the non-acceptance nature of the Australian audiences towards the minority groups is not a good signal for the betterment of the comedy festival. The cultural assimilation would further improve the business of the festival.

References:

Conway, D. G. (2014). The Event Manager's Bible 3rd Edition: The Complete Guide to Planning and Organising a Voluntary or Public Event. Hachette UK.

Luckhurst, M., & Rae, J. (2016). Diversity Agendas in Australian Stand-Up Comedy. M/C Journal, 19(4).

Melbourne International Comedy Festival. (2017). Melbourne International Comedy Festival. [online] Available at: https://www.comedyfestival.com.au/about-us [Accessed 18 May 2017].

Quinn, B. (2013). Key concepts in event management. Sage.

Yeoman, I., Robertson, M., McMahon-Beattie, U., Smith, K. A., & Backer, E. (2014). The Future of Events & Festivals. Routledge.