Jakarta, 20 April 2015 – British Council encourages innovations in Indonesia Arts and Culture Promotion through capacity building programme that supports festival managers and city government in Yogyakarta, Indonesia, to better manage, promote and support the city’s wealth of high quality cultural festivals.
“The potential that this City Festival Management programme offers is exceptional and from the work undertaken to date offers an exciting opportunity to make the Festivals in Yogyakarta the stand out attraction in the coming years, “Country Director British Council Indonesia, Sally Goggin, said in Jakarta, Monday.
British Council is proud to invite James McVeigh, Head of Marketing and Innovation, Festivals Edinburgh to deliver the third workshop in Yogyakarta City Branding and Festival Management, which will be held in Yogyakarta on Wednesday - Friday, 22 - 24 April 2015.
Sally Goggin, Country Director of The British Council Indonesia said that The Edinburgh Festival, which actually consists of at least 5 main festivals, is perhaps one of the most globally renowned festivals attracting hundreds of thousands of visitors to the city every year.
“We are therefore delighted that we are able to bring the expertise, knowledge and experience that Festivals Edinburgh have built over the years to Indonesia to advise those working to build a similar programme in Yogyakarta,” she said.
Meanwhile James McVeigh, Head of Marketing and Innovation, Festivals Edinburgh, during the press session in Jakarta said that Festivals Edinburgh is delighted to be working with the British Council in Indonesia.
“Over the years, a number of Indonesian artists have attended our festivals and we hope that initiatives like these will strengthening our relationship and develop them in the future, so that more and more artists in the UK and Indonesia can work together and showcase together,” he said.
Since June 2014, British Council has been working closely with best festivals in Yogyakarta to develop promotional and marketing concepts and bring festivals in Yogyakarta to the higher level. Two previous workshops have been delivered to fulfil the needs of festivals managers and organisers, continuing two Forum Group Discussions that were held before the programme started.
The first workshop in December 2014 has successfully been delivered by Shona McCarthy, Director, Derry~Londonderry City of Culture as the facilitator, while the second workshop, held in early March 2015 invited two speakers from the region to share their experiences on organising international festivals: Joe Sidek, Director, George Town Festival, Penang, Malaysia and Janet de Neefe, Founder/Director, Ubud Writers and Readers Festival.
During the workshops, the festival directors have covered fundamental things on building up the collaboration such as mapping out the brand DNA of Yogyakarta, stakeholders and funding challenges and strategic planning process for creating sustainable festivals and many more.
The two workshops have also stimulated the participants to unite in a forum in order to realise the joint promotion initiative under the brand name of ‘jogjafestivals’. Through this programme, British Council hopes to give contribution to build a new image of Yogyakarta as “the Festival City” as currently the forum is preparing for the grand design of ‘jogjafestivals’ and aiming to launch this pilot programme by this year.