Nightfest blowout

cranky said :

Of considerable aditional annoyance is this bunch of clowns bailing out the pushy brigade for $500K. Given the flack visited on Chic Henry for asking for a rent reduction (which I don’t think was granted), the lack of publicity is astonishing!

I could point out the 3-4 nurses/policemen these funds would employ, but realise some community priorities also call on the exchequer. But $500K to support a facility that has already soaked up over $8 million is becoming a sore.

Particularly when motorsport is flat out scoring a brass razoo!

According to This article it will inject $20 million into the local economy. Seems worth it to me. Also CORC is a cycling club, not someone out to make a profit out of an event.

Of considerable aditional annoyance is this bunch of clowns bailing out the pushy brigade for $500K. Given the flack visited on Chic Henry for asking for a rent reduction (which I don’t think was granted), the lack of publicity is astonishing!

I could point out the 3-4 nurses/policemen these funds would employ, but realise some community priorities also call on the exchequer. But $500K to support a facility that has already soaked up over $8 million is becoming a sore.

Particularly when motorsport is flat out scoring a brass razoo!

Seems a fairly fundamental thing to miss – ie whats the capacity?

I’m not sure about what they actually mean in this story. Did they actually spend $531k on a 5 day nightfest – if so, $100k per night seems vastly excessive? Or did they actually spend less, plan for $531k revenue to generate a profit and then make either a loss or a lower profit?

My mind boggles at how a film, some markets and a bit of live music – plus the lighting and stuff, comes out anywhere near $100k (and I would expect even then that the market stalls and food and wine is operating at the expense of the stall operators not being paid for by Nightfest).

AndyC said :

A Noisy Noise Annoys An Oyster said :

And just for the record, the only “performance bonus” a lot of them get is less than the current annual inflation rate (which is performance based = no savings to government, less bonus), not to mention a lower rate of super than their Federal counterparts.

I don’t get any “performance bonus” in my job, I just do my job and I just get paid the regular wage for it. I do lots of stuff that is above and beyond the call of duty and lots of missed or short lunches as well as starting early and finishing late and still no “performance bonus”. I feel the local shinybums’ pain at getting less than their Federal counterparts…not.

Don’t forget that many of Canberra’s less successful tourism destinations are in fact run by federal bureaucrats … NMA and OPH come to mind. Mind you, the wonderful War Memorial is federally run. As are the NPG and NGA.

A Noisy Noise Annoys An Oyster said :

. . . and more public servants getting “performance bonuses” (800 bureaucrats to administer Canberra in 1989 prior to self government, 19,000 local shinybum bludgers now).

19,000 local shinybum bludgers??? I’d love to know where you get your numbers. I’m not convinced there is quiet that many. But you know, I’m sure you won’t winge when teachers get the sack and suddenly there are 35+* childern in your kids class or you start sacking rangers and there is no-one or scare away the possums who make too much noise in your yard at night.

Oh that’s right you would whinge..

And just for the record, the only “performance bonus” a lot of them get is less than the current annual inflation rate (which is performance based = no savings to government, less bonus), not to mention a lower rate of super than their Federal counterparts.

I could go on but have deemed you a troll so won’t.

*I have no idea how many students are currently in a class in ACT primary schools, but if A Noisy Noise can pull numbers out his ar*e so can I….

He said most patrons wanted to see the nightly movie screened at Stage 88, which has limited capacity, while few had any interest in the markets.
…
However, due to a miscalculation in how many people they could let in to Commonwealth Park at night, organisers grossly overestimated the expected revenue from Nightfest.
…
Instead of up to 10,000 attending each night and raising $531,000, attendance was capped at about 5000 and raised only $286,000.

So, someone forgot to check fundamental things like site capacity, and it cost the taxpayer $250,000?
Asking “How many people can we legally fit into this location, at the time we want to stage event, without putting public safety at risk?” is a stupidly basic thing.

On the plus side, average spending per visitor was slightly higher than projected…

That $250K could have been better spent on Summernats!

So if they set an excessive budget then underspend, would you expect somebody to be promoted for ‘saving’? It’s more important to work out whether the expenditure was efficient and effective. That is, was the $250K needed, and did we get value for money?

Noone needs to resign. Creating new public events is always going to be a bit hit and miss. You’ve got to give things a try. And events need time to grow – just because it wasn’t a huge success first time around is no reason to give up.

BUT – I hope this teaches them that tourism projections are just guesswork and need to be quite conservative. ERgo – their projection of more tourist numbers for the little trees on a hot hill (arboretum) than for the War Memorial (biggest tourism numbers for anything in Canberra) is probably a bit on the high side…