Better planning needed for future festivals

Better planning needed for future festivals

Dewi Anggraeni, Contributor, Ubud

There is a first time for everything, and that first time often determines whether the event will be a one-off affair or the beginning of something big and beautiful.

Bali has just seen the inaugural Ubud Writers and Readers Festival wrap up after running a week from Oct. 11 to Oct. 17.

The event was host to a broad audience, involving people from across Indonesia, as well as participants of other countries such as Australia, Canada, Denmark, Hong Kong, India, Malaysia, the Netherlands, New Zealand, the Philippines, Singapore, the United Kingdom and the United States.

Organized by Janet de Neefe and Heather Curnow, the festival received sponsorship and patronage from corporation and organizations, including Garuda Indonesia, Ford Motors, the Australia-Indonesia Institute and the Australia Council.

Local businesses such as Biasa Boutique, Pita Maha, Saritaksu, Indus, Kori Ubud, Terazo and Bebek Bengil, as well as media and publication firms -- such as Bali Advertiser, the Femina Group, Good Reading, Hello Bali, Indonesiatera The Jakarta Post and Bali Rebound -- also participated.

The event certainly had enough teething troubles to keep its organizers and sponsors awake at night, but it was also a bouncing and gorgeous baby that gave those around it a great deal of fun and joy.

Being hosted in Ubud also had its advantages and disadvantages. The most obvious advantages are, of course, its natural beauty, pleasant weather and generally friendly environment. Curiously, these advantages had accompanying disadvantages.

People here, even those who originally come from the West, are significantly less uptight than those who live elsewhere, having absorbed the local ambience.

Consequently, they are not as scrupulous about organizational details such as punctuality and a well-planned structure. This relaxed approach hardly sits well in an event such as a writers' festival, where good organization is a sine qua non.

For the organizers, especially the volunteers responsible for the smooth running of each session at each venue every day, any crack in the line of communication has the potential to be a disaster.

For a program volunteer at the Ubud festival for instance, a speaker who turned up late for a session, or failed to come at all, meant having to find a replacement speaker extra-fast, praying, no doubt, that the panel would run after all.

A mismatch might have caused little more than a shrug or a "well, this is Bali" comment from locals or long-time residents of Ubud, but might have displeased those who had come from cultures where events like these are much more tightly organized.

Specifically for this festival, language proved to be an issue needing better planning and consideration next time around. There needed to be more integration and interaction between English and Indonesian speakers. If interpretations and translations are necessary to encourage people to attend certain panels, then they need to be part of the plan.

At the debriefing session followed by a lavish dinner at Indus on Monday night, when the volunteers -- over 30 all together -- gave their honest feedback, a Balinese volunteer brought up a very important issue: For the festival to be a successful regular event, the organizers would have to work harder in making the Balinese feel that it belonged to them as well.

In this post-Bali bombing era, when everyone in Bali -- expatriates, migrants and Balinese alike -- is encouraged to rethink their relationships with each other, this is indeed an important suggestion. It certainly would be a challenge to make the Ubud Writers and Readers Festival a Balinese fixture, rather than an international affair taking place in Bali.

It is also important to note that all who cared enough to write and offer their feedback expressed how much they enjoyed the festival, which featured many excellent panels and rewarding workshops.

A young theater producer from San Francisco was very impressed with the palpable energy -- nervous and creative alike -- which he saw and felt among the organizers, volunteers, speakers and workshop presenters. An abundance of good faith was also evident among the participants, whose sense of fun often offset any glitches or shortcomings in a number of sessions.

One example of this was the poetry slam on Friday night at Bebek Bengil restaurant, during which the poets used Indonesian, Javanese and English -- and the audience seemed to enjoy them all. No one was once heard complaining of not understanding a particular poem declaimed and performed. Even in the following days, people were still heard saying they had not had so much fun in a long time.

We have to congratulate the organizers for having the courage to embark upon such a big venture and coming out at the other end without regret, as they are already speaking of next year's festival.

Janet de Neefe, the festival director, is emphatic that the festival will be an annual event, and is undaunted by the realization that the task would be much more complicated the next time.

At least we know that the Bali Police looked after our security seriously.

It is hoped that this year's Ubud Writers and Readers Festival is not a one-off affair, and that this baby will grow into a strong and reliable individual who will not only attract talent from throughout Indonesia and worldwide, but will also serve as a bridge for mutual understanding.

The author, a Melbourne-based writer and journalist, was an active speaker and participant at the festival. She is the author of Who Did This to Our Bali?