Event mayhem

Day one of the festival is complete! It has been a fabulous (yet frenzied!) day. Today it was the Long Table Feast, and the Margaret River Sidewalk Street Fiesta. It didn't matter how prepared we were, there was lots of rushing around and madness. I think there is always a lesson to be learnt for next time, but I also realise that running around on event day is to be expected. For the Long Table Feast I had to print the menus, guillotine them and then race them over to Leeuwin Estate where the 5-course lunch was being held. I got them there at 11am, just in time for the 12.30pm lunch. The long tables were set amongst the native karri trees at the incredible Leeuwin Estate. The beautiful smells of native flora, mixed with lovely ladies perfume filled the air, as the 208 guests arrived. It was obvious to all that this was a special event. For the short time while guests arrived I assisted with ticketing which simply involved welcoming guests, taking their tickets and directing them towards their first glass of wine!


Other than this brief interlude at the Long Table Feast, I ran errands for my supervisor, and focused on the Sidewalk Street Fiesta which was at 4.30-7.30pm this evening. The Sidewalk Street Fiesta is the community element to this four-day wine region festival which welcomes guests from Perth, interstate and the world. It is the classic free wine-tasting event on the main street of town in Margaret River for locals and festival patrons to soak up the entertainment and sample wines. In the past there has been road closures which were canned this year. I think it made the event better. By containing the crowd to the Sidewalks it felt busier and livelier. When the roads are closed the crowds are too dispersed which can result in the event feeling a little limp. Another change was the wine-tastings were actually held inside businesses along the main street of town rather than in a park. This meant people were buying things, and the shops involved could enjoy a little bit of PR! Some of shops such as the book shops made for a particularly quirky and fun setting to do a wine-tasting.

Sagika Boutique

Sagika Boutique, a ladies fashion shop, hosted Bransgrove Estate. The ladies who own Sagika, (Sandie, Gina & Karen) asked for a 'nice winery' to do their tasting. Bransgrove Estate is a lovely boutique family winery. It made sense to partner Bransgrove Estate with Sagika Boutique.

Rivertales Book Shop

Rivertales Book Shop hosted Arimia for the wine-tasting event. It wasn't until I dropped into Rivertales during a postering run in town three weeks ago that owner Susan Royer said they would like to be involved. Her partner works with Arimia, so she personally organised the tasting. The backdrop of books made for a warm setting. 

Margaret River Memories

Margaret River Memories had a wine tasting with Jarvis Estate. This was the miracle tasting. They were originally meant to have Evans & Tate do a wine tasting with them. Unfortunately Evans & Tate did not have an Approved Manager with ID card and were refused by Liquor Licensing. Today the ladies at MR Memories found Jarvis Estate and contacted Liquor Licensing themselves and made their event happen! Not to mention they put on a fabulous spread at the front of the shop and also served cheeses!

The Spaghetti Bowl

The Spaghetti Bowl had Cowaramup Wines & Clown Fish. Because they were a licensed restaurant, I did not need to include the Spaghetti Bowl on my Liquor License which was a bonus. During my call-out for wineries I phoned Cowaramup Wines & Clown Fish to see if they would be interested in being involved. It was then that they told me they already were, and were partnered with the Spaghetti Bowl! Easy.

Margaret River Book Shop

Margaret River Book Shop had Preveli Wines. Interestingly, Preveli Wines cellar door actually doubles up as the Prevelly Beach caravan park shop. It is a locals wine, and can be bought in large bottles. They do a particularly delicous Cabernet Merlot which was one of the wines at the Long Table Feast. The Preveli Wines are made at the Fraser-Gallop winery.

Settlers Liquor

This was a walk in the park for Settlers Liquor who featured a wine tasting from Flametree. As a bottle-shop they are quite familiar with having guest wineries come to the shop to spruik their wines through a tasting. The gentleman in the blue shirt and I must have been going in the same direction because he ended up at a few more wineries at the same time.

Tunbridge Gallery

The Tunbridge Gallery hosted a wine tasting with Thompson Estate. Both the gallery and winery were easily the most organised of all of the premises I dealt with. They arranged their tasting, got the paperwork back to me immediately, and caused no problems with the Liquor Licensing. This was a a civilised affair- I think guests enjoyed being able to look at art while trying the Thompson Estate wines.

The Good Olive

The Good Olive enjoyed a wine tasting from the reputable Cape Grace. Karen Karri-Davies who is pictured is the Cape Grace owner and was able to provide expert knowledge about the current vintage and her wines.

Goodfellas Cafe

Goodfellas Cafe had Howard Park & MadFish Wines. That is me in the photo. A lady who was tasting wines demanded my camera from me. She said that she bet I did not have a single photo of myself from the night and that she would take one. It was a little bit embarrassing, but nice to get shot of my work experience!

Margaret River Visitor Centre

The Margaret River Visitor Centre had not one, not two but four wineries. They had Windance Estate, Fermoy, House of Cards and Vasse Felix. After 6.30pm the public wine tasting at the Visitor Centre was ended to allow a special VIP tasting for our festival sponsors The Sunday Times, Channel 9 & Gourmet Traveller.






















Other than wine tastings there was market stalls, bands, buskers, street performers and marching bands up and down the sidewalks on the main stretch of town to create a lively atmosphere. At the top of town was the family section, with face painting, a bouncy castle, DJ Swami and food stalls.


I did a decent proportion of the event planning for the Sidewalk Street Fiesta, which made it feel all of the more special to me. Early on in the piece I had to source wineries for local businesses who had not yet found partnered with a winery. I've had meetings the Augusta-Margaret River Shire Council and the Margaret River Visitor Centre in the planning stages. I've arranged for the official paperwork and Liquor Licensing which has been a long, complicated process due to the large number of businesses involved, and various venues to be licensed. I designed the official mud-map for the event too. The mud-map is a black and white DL sized flyer which represented the main street of town, all relevant details, and all of the wine-tasting event locations for the evening. Unfortunately, I could not print the mud-maps until today- as I have been waiting with baited breath to find out if our liquor license would be approved before I went ahead and printed off 1000 back-to-front copies of this flyer. Over the past three weeks, we have experienced a series of difficulties with our liquor licensing, and it was only last night, (the very night before the festival!), did it finally come through. The mud-maps were the principal piece of documentation which gave the Sidewalk Street Fiesta any order. Without these, nobody would know what was going on or where the wine-tastings were being held. Furthermore, I snuck in some cheeky publicity for tomorrows Vintage Festival by printing that on the back! In the afternoon half of these mud-maps went to the businesses hosting events. During the first two hours of the festival my supervisor's kids and I personally handed out the remainder of mud-maps to people on the street- and there was literally a few thousand people!

Tomorrow is the Vintage Festival, and I have a very early start!


Student: Keely Robertson
Campus: Bentley Campus
Placement: Travel Management Group / Margaret River Wine Region Festival

Flooding the media with wine

Name: Keely Robertson

Campus: Bentley

Placement: Travel Management Group; Margaret River Wine Region Festival 2012

Placement Stats

The official start date of my placement was 20^th February; however I began my own personal work experience with the organisation from Monday 6^th February with two - three contact days per week depending on deadlines. At this point in time, I am well and truly immersed in my placement working on the Margaret River Wine Region Festival 2012 at Margaret River event management company; Travel Management Group.

The Margaret River Wine Region Festival is the premier event to celebrate the end of vintage and commemorate the magnificent work of the Margaret River wine region. TMG has been contracted by the Margaret River Wine Industry Association to organise the annual event on April 13-16th. There are four main events; the Vintage Festival, the Long Table Feast as well as two street fiestas in Dunsborough and Margaret River. A dozen more events will unfold at local wineries over the course of the festival.



2011 Vintage Fest entrance at Palmer Wines



Media Campaign

We are currently in the heart of the media campaign. At the start of my placement, my supervisor and I developed a week-by-week media timetable extending right up to the festival, and the weeks that follow. Each week for the past two months I have written media releases which are distributed through the MRWIA to their media contacts. To my delight, all of these media releases have been published in one of the south-west community newspapers. Unlike state publications who might prefer to put their own stamp on a story, the community newspapers have been a lot more receptive to publishing media releases without making great changes. Taking this into account, I've ensured all of the media releases follow the inverted pyramid style and are written as though I was a reporter for these newspapers. My media releases are proofed by TMG director John ‘JB’ Bradbury. JB sends the article through the MRWIA, who check they're being properly represented before then distributing it among their media contacts. As this step-ladder scenario might indicate, my part of the process is the very first rung. So at the start of each week I write my articles for the following Monday, giving enough time to filter through accordingly. See below for a couple of the articles about the festival which have also been published online.

Vintage Festival

Long Table Feast

Win a Cellar

Margaret River

(JB was interviewed by a journalist for the Margaret River article. This article featured in the Escape magazine in the Sunday Times on 19th Febrary. Unfortunately, the festival itself isn't mentioned until halfway through the article, but it did score the front page of the magazine!)

Over the past fortnight I have been putting together the event programme. The event programme will be published as a 16-page lift-out in the Sunday Times this Sunday, 25^th March. The content I have written includes; event blurbs and feature articles, the MRWIA president welcome, and band bios. I adapted some of the content from past festival programmes, and the Sunday Times journalists contributed several articles too. Let me know your thoughts if you see it!

Channel 9 and WIN has commenced airing the festival advertisement which can be caught at midday, or after 8.30pm (not in prime time because it is an alcohol event). Hotfm will be running a series of advertisements and some editorial during the next few weeks.

Image: The cover-page for the event programme which is to be published in the Sunday Times, 25th March. Artwork by Margaret River artisan Julienne Pogue is titled 'Lunch with the girls at Cullens'. Julienne won the People’s Choice Poster Competition at the 2011 Vintage Festival